Brother in Revolt and Lawgiver supreme gets the skinny from our favorite sonic alchemist, Black Tempest…
Using that old saw known as “linear time,” we can see that not a great deal of time has passed since we first found ourselves in the orbit of Black Tempest. But then, we didn’t need much time to become enthralled by the sounds of the tempest, and since that time, our admiration has grown boundlessly. After all, space is dark and it is so endless.
Black Tempest is also dark, it should come as no surprise, and some are likely to find the sprawling, gravitationally-uninhabited soundscapes that populate brilliant albums like “Proxima” to approach the definition of “endless.” Certainly these sounds are not governed by any conventional notions of time. Rather, the Black Tempest listening experience owes more to an observation of the limitless and then seeing that limitlessness transformed into a finite expression.
And what an expression it is. Black Tempest’s cosmic creations – informed equally by a direct line of influence from space-and-krautrock pioneers (shadows of Klaus Schulze, Popul Vuh and Tangerine Dream abound) and the more indirect influence of simply being a limitless music-obsessive living in the 21st-century – make great use of the dark reflections one sees when staring into the void of space, but never seem detached from the human element, the magnetic impulse that directs ones attention toward the void in the first place. It’s a sound alien in immediate appearance, yet coursing with human blood at the heart of the machine.
We’re elated to have been brought into the orbit of Black Tempest – an elation upon which time will have only a compounding effect – and equally thrilled to have the heart of this darkness, Stephen Bradbury, provide answers to our ridiculous questions below. Enjoy.
Can you recall a time when either a single piece of music, the single performance of a band, a particular album, etc., changed your way of thinking about music in total? What was that music and what was it about that music that made such a distinct impression on you? How have your thoughts about it evolved since your first introduction?
I guess that’s happened to me a few times over the years. The first time, and thus probably the most profound, would have been Steve Hillage’s “Fish Rising.” I was probably about 12 or 13 when it came out. I used to hang around in our local record shop in the shopping arcade, and the long-haired bloke behind the counter, a few years older than me, recommended it to me. I took it home and it promptly blew my tiny teenage mind. It made me realise that music could take you outside of your normal consciousness to “other places.”
Since then the “classic” Hillage albums (“Fish Rising,” “Green,” “L,” “Motivation Radio”) have become touchstones for me, reminding me that my own music could, possibly fulfill the same function for other people. This is, essentially, what I aspire to.
A few years later I had similar revelatory experiences with Jimi Hendrix’ “Rainbow Bridge” album, and Spirit’s marvelous “Spirit of ‘76″ double. I first heard both of these during my first full-on hallucinatory experience, back in the days of “proper” microdots. They opened my eyes to the fact that I wasn’t the first person to tread those mysterious paths, and that music could be a guide and a teacher. This is also something I try to give back to people who take the time to listen to my own music.
Gravity Serpent, to our unbridled joy, recently caught the eye of Keir McDonald, creative force behind 80’s electronic-psych noiseniks ViV Akauldren and the experimental soundscapes of Medusa Cyclone. Ever the opportunists, we asked the man whose song title we snared for our zine if he could answer a few questions, a request he kindly accepted.
So Keir, what was the catalyst behind your decision to become a musician?
If you’re unfamiliar with The Pretty Things’ music, drop everything, leave this page immediately, and check out some songs on Youtube or wherever else you go to hear music. Then go buy some of their albums (I recommend starting with S.F. Sorrow or Get The Picture?). You won’t be disappointed.
Seeing as how this blog is named after a Pretty Things song, it made sense to try and score an interview with the influential British group. Mission accomplished. I spoke to the group via email in two sections. First, with Phil May (Vocals) and Dick Taylor (Guitar), the core duo of original members, going back almost 50 years! Mark St. John (Manager/Producer) answered some of the more business-related question in that section as well. Then I spoke with “the new guys”: Jack Greenwood (Drums), George Perez (Bass) and Frank Holland (Guitar), who have done a tremendous amount to revitalize the band in recent years.
Enjoy!
Midnight To Six: Did you see a lot of American blues acts touring the U.K. in the first half of the 1960s? Do you remember any specific shows you saw that stand out from that period?
Phil May: I talked to Dick about this the other day because I have a strong image of going with him to see Bo Diddley when The Stones supported him in 1963 at the Woolwich A.B.C. But mainly my early blues feed came from import recordings.
Dick Taylor: I remember seeing Sister Rosetta Tharpe with her wonderful white Gibson SG. I was enthralled. The list could get quite long. One great one was Little Walter, he played at the Black Prince pub in Bexley and was just as good as the records. I remember waiting at the bus stop in the fog and seeing a bloke chase another with a huge axe. That certainly sticks in the memory. Later, when all the soul acts came over, we used to see people like Wilson Pickett in tiny clubs.
Nik Turner is founding member of space rock pioneers Hawkwind. Turner plays saxophones, flute, sings and is a composer. While with Hawkwind, Turner was known for his experimental free jazz style. We spoke about the past and also about some of his latest projects.
Interview:
Hi Nik, it’s a pleasure to talk with you regarding your music career. Tell me how did it all start for you in a music scene?
Hello Klemen, nice to meet you. Well talking about sax playing, I learnt to play clarinet to start with, then graduated to saxophone when I was about 17. I had lessons from a dude up the street, learnt a couple of Charlie Parker, Gerry Mulligan and other groovy sax players tunes, played on and off for a couple of years, then didn’t practise very much, then hardly ever played, a problem disturbing the neighbours. I worked in Holland in 1967 on a rock and roll circus, where I met Mick Slattery and Dave Brock, who had a band, The Famous Cure, which played in the Circus, and kept in touch with them when they went back to Britain. In 1968 I spent time in Berlin, hanging out in psychedelic clubs with Edgar Froese from Tangerine Dream, and other current psychedelic musicians, and at the Bue Note Jazz Club with a lot of free jazz players, who convinced me you didn’t need to be technical to express yourself musically. So I had this vision of playing free jazz in a rock band. When I came back to Britain, and hooked up with Mick and Dave, they were getting a band together. By now I had a van, (I was living in it), and thought I could be the Road Manager.
You offered a van to freshly formed Hawkwind. What happened next?
In early 1989, Tadpoles (then a duo of Mike Audino and me) produced a cassette-only album on our 4-track called Beautiful Music For Ugly Children and gave it out to a few friends before promptly moving on to the next batch of songs…That’s just how things we done in the days before MP3, the web and file sharing…In the 90′s, two of those songs, Judas, This is Jesus and Old Dirty Mushrooms appeared in freshly recorded form as bonus tracks on Tadpoles Far Out album and the Know Your Ghosts EP.
And that was the last Beautiful Music we ever played for Ugly Children.
Until now…
The Tadpoles, in any form, have always had an off-kilter undercurrent running through them; often buried under layers of neo-psychedelia, often more overt. This loopy bag of tricky whiffs have often been hard to nail down as to where exactly it was coming from. That is, as Parker says, ‘until now.’ In some ways Evil Blisscan loosely be viewed as a bookend to last year’s Feel Like a Freak: A Historical Sideshow of Missing Links, but with a much deeper grasp…and grope. Both reveal possibly overlooked aspects of the ‘tads catalog, but on Evil BlissParker and Audino stick their hands way down deep into the fertile soil; down with the old dirty mushrooms, ants and the ugly children that we all start out as. Though retooled for the modern age, Evil Bliss is inescapably of its time. Not in the stale reheated out-of-fashion fickle oven of time, but in pinpointing where, and what, the ‘tads d/evolved into. Evil Bliss roots them in the same kind of soil and era that birthed other left, right, top and bottom of center outfits like Ween, Flaming Lips and Butthole Surfers, who all in one way or another, morphed into something more tangentially ‘straight-ahead’ without abandoning the grips of their ugly childhoods. Obvious cuts like Judas, This is Jesus and Evil Bliss are signpost heavy, while others like the delightfully chirping What Is Made Is How It Is or Scrotumhead lay out a more circuitous detour prone route through their timeline.
A funny thing happened on the way to recording an album of brand new Witches material. We got sidetracked. Mike always said BMFUC was his favorite Tadpoles album. He wanted to give it another chance.
So we did.
There may be only path to where you are, but nothing says it has to be a straight line. If you look, and listen, closely enough there’s a lot happening between Point A and Point B. God forbid you grow up along the way…in the spirit of pursuing Evil Bliss and in honor of cracked rearview mirrors and fractured prisms, Parker and Audino agreed to another detour…track to track…
> Bastard is Born The Pretty Things began their seminal S.F. Sorrow with S.F. Sorrow is Born, birthing for many the definitive concept album. You delivered Bastard as the lead-in cut…is Evil Bliss a concept record, and if it is, will you admit it?
Todd Parker: That was Jimmee’s birthday song…the Tadpoles’ feisty imaginary manager, mascot and muse. That set the tone for the concept of both album and career!
> Trippingpongballing in NY I can’t say what the #1 rule of the sporting game Fight Club is, but what’s the #1 rule of Trippingpongballing?
TP: The #1 rule of Trippingpongballing is that it is only to be played in honor of Mr. Mishkin while at a picnic for Teddy Bears. Know your Kim Deitch!
Mike Audino: The first and last get switched.
> Old Dirty Mushrooms One of my favorite books when I was a real ugly child was Under a Mushroom. Free associate on this image from a childhood fave:
TP: A scene that plays out under my shoe while we sit in our dusty Staten Island basement rehearsal studio listening to answering machine messages that I feed through my echoplex on infinite loop, totally freaking out our young padawan bass player. Poor kid grew up and became a son of the void.
MA: You may see yourself under there.
> Evil Bliss What’s the opposite of ‘evil bliss?’
TP: Strawberry Shortcake served up fresh on a Perfumed Pillow by your favorite Whirling Dervish.
MA: Wincing Acquiescence.
> King of the Castle If you were adrift on a lifeboat and you had to throw one passenger overboard to make it back, who would you toss: the King of the Castle, Lord of this World or the Master of the Universe? And why.
Dead Sea Apes‘ Lupus begins with a ding…either the timer is done or the elevator is opening on the Apes’ new campaign. Time to go for a stroll; pack light, bring water…Pharmakon leads the way, rolling out to usher in Lupus’ expanse, both a new direction and an extension of where they’ve been before with their debut, Soy Dios. Where Soy Dios left you feeling like the remains of a hallucinogenic desert bake-off from multiple angles, Lupus plays out like the internal fever dream. If anything, Dead Sea Apes create atmosphere. Guitarist Brett Savage sums it up: “It’s got more of a witch-y, spooky, lost in the forest at midnight vibe – as opposed to our other style – the spooky, lost in the desert at midday vibe.” He would know. Along with Nick Harris (bass) and Chris Hardman (drums), they create the shifting soundstage for their vibes to flourish, to both define and be defined. The slow boils found in the pinging Still; the sonic ebbs and flows and soft edges of Something About Death; the rules may be vague, but they are their rules. It could be argued that they are an insular band, but the world they create to operate in is full-on Cinemascope and like the desert they wander in seems without edge or constraint. The lengthiest cuts that exploit this, like Knowledge and Conversation, don’t feel big or overblown; they simply and naturally take up the space they require to get the job done. They move purposefully and at times methodically, but they aren’t tied to the tracks by any means. Dead Sea Apes don’t wildly go off the rails, but you may blink or come back down and realize you’ve drifted off with them to a remote part of the landscape that was hidden from the main road. Like Soy Dios, Lupus is ghostly and menacing, resigned to carrying its burden as long and as far as it needs to be taken. If Soy Dios was the angry one prone to physical outbursts, Lupus tempers the anger with introspection and an almost battle weary reflection, both on the world they create and the sounds used to make it materialize.
After a bout of activity that saw the end of Lupus’ gestation and an appearance on the outstanding Keep Off the Grasswith a mind-warping rendition of Skip Spence’s Land of the Sun, Brett Savage took some time out to get us up to speed on the evolution of Dead Sea Apes…so far.
ma: Congratulations on Land of the Sun. Safe to assume you’re happy with it?
Brett Savage: Yes, very happy, not least because we have something out on lovely green vinyl, and we’re really thrilled to have something on the Fruits De Mer label. They’re a great little label, and lovely chaps. We’ve got something cooking up for them as we speak.
ma: Two parts: Why Skip Spence, and why that cut?
BS: I’ve always had a yen for the damaged acid-casualty type, and Skip Spence is no exception. I think Land Of The Sun appeals for lots of reasons, not least because it’s fucking amazing and sonically adventurous. It has a loose enough arrangement for us to add what we wanted to it. We recorded it in a fairly spontaneous fashion as well. We didn’t obsessively learn the original song, so we felt comfortable enough knowing the finished result would end up sounding like us. Funnily enough, Chris did some digging around and found out that Skip originally wanted drums and plenty of crazy guitar on it, and all this was stripped off in the mix. So in that respect, I feel we’ve honoured Skip without doing a carbon copy of the original.
Brother in Revolt gets the skinny with drummer Julian Dicken…who, by the way, is not dead…
When we were first given the gift of hearing the music of Glasgow’s The Cosmic Dead – that music being among the most mesmerizing, the most powerful, the most cosmically calculated chanting chaos that we listened to, repeatedly, in the whole of 2011 – we found it hard not to reflect on another gift we were given some thirty-plus years previously.
The gift in question was a copy of one of the most popular books of all time – “Cosmos” by Carl Sagan, the illustrated companion to the 1980 television series of the same name.
You needn’t be the Associate Director of the Center for Radio Physics and Space Research at Cornell University to make the connection between The Cosmic Dead and Sagan, who did as much as anyone else in the 20th century to advocate for the exploration of space using the best parts of our inquisitive nature. And – make no mistake about it – he’s dead.
More to the point, it’s a similar inquisitiveness that unites Sagan with The Cosmic Dead – an enduring quest for, if not the truth, future questions and future answers. We hear it in The Cosmic Dead’s loud, massively over-driven space-rock majesty, repeating its unearthly sounds for light years between our ears.
’11 could have wrapped up as the Year of the Butterfly in certain circles. Topping off a flurry of activity, The Luck of Eden Hall spread their wings wider with The Butterfly Revolutions, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, back-to-back sweetness that goes down as smooth as cream…and floats right to the top-shelf. Stir in a batch of singles with an appearance on Keep Off the Grassand you have a full box of ‘rock and rollisms‘ yearning for you stick your fingers in. LOEH’s Gregory Curvey gives the skinny on their own butterfly effect; making psych sweetness filler and fat-free.
ma:Richard Hamilton said, “Pop Art is: popular, transient, expendable, low-cost, mass-produced, young, witty, sexy, gimmicky, glamorous, and Big Business.” True? Does that apply to ‘pop’ music?
Gregory Curvey: Low cost? It’s all relative, but I would agree with that for about 99%. There are a handful of pop songs that definitely transcend his description, but yeah, it’s mostly treated as a vehicle for catchy hooks. Bad or good.
ma: You hear a lot of bitching about the ‘music business’ being to blame for the state of pop music today, etc, etc…Don’t people get what they want, really?
GC: I don’t know. People eat what they’re fed. Right FOX? I suppose the machine had figured out how to spoon feed people what they wanted the people to purchase…or they polled different selected groups and focused in on the lowest common denominator…or the stations played the corporate stuff so they could continue to get perks and backstage passes from big corporate artists…but there have always been really great stand out tracks in every genre of music, yes? Or art for that matter. An artist produces a masterpiece, if they’re lucky, and then keeps trying to top it or at least live up to it. If an artist’s work (and it is work, folks) becomes something the masses want….it shouldn’t necessarily be condemned.
ma: Do you consider LOEH a ‘pop’ band? What’s your basis for ‘pop?’ And, psych for that matter?
GC:Popped Psychedelic Rock and Rollisms are what The Luck of Eden Hall creates. Pop? Yes, because I was weaned on the stuff and can’t seem to shake it. Psychedelic because it’s look, feel, sound and imagery still stir my soul. Pop is anything with a hook, I guess. Psych? I’m very honored when The Luck of Eden Hall is described as psych and I’m happy to see another psych movement happening. Though I do hope it doesn’t become a limited, extra reverberated, wafer thin slice of psychedelia. It should be about expansion, yes? Read more of this post
Being that I’m perpetually late to the party, it really didn’t surprise me all that much when I found out that Steven Cerio was the brains (or meat and potatoes) behind Atlantic Drone. I was already a big fan of his visuals (think The Residents for only one place to start), so when the road lead to Atlantic Drone, I was more embarrassed that I hadn’t clued into the signposts (more on those below) up ahead. A dizzingly prolific talent, Cerio is some ways like an inverted Little Dutch Boy (sorry, Mr. Cerio) who prefers to take his finger out, but is keenly aware of the importance of putting your fingers in it as well. Two opposing points of view? We’ll get to that, too, along with biscuits, Rick Wakemen’s attire and the dire need for a new hand gesture.
Grab a towel to mop up spilled milk and leaking ids…free association rests stops provided along the way as the journey becomes the destination. And by all means, when you’re done, leave the seat up…
My Kingdom for a Confection :: Atlantic Drone :: A Vivified Sugar Cube Explains the Universe (2009, Circadia Records)
ma: I was going to ask ‘Who is Steven Cerio?’ I think it’s better to ask, ‘Why Steven Cerio?’
SC: Pretty deep stuff!! Are you questioning my reality? My particle based form? You’ll have to ask the owner.
SC: Nope nothing religious, just plain earthly stuff. I don’t do spiritual, I’m content making fun of eternity and paradise. I like being here. “Here” is the owner.
ma: So, are you admitting you are of this planet?
SC: You know of some alternative to bumblebees, grass and giraffes? I’m not interested.
Resonance ≈ Studio engineers and sound-men hate me. My drums ring because I won’t dampen with tape and all of those other knick knacks drummers invented so they don’t need to tune their drums. They don’t like hearing “when you’re done slapping duct tape all over my drumheads be sure to wrap up those guitars, they’re making ringing noises and notes.” Drums are an acoustic instrument when they’re tuned correctly. ≈
ma: Illustrator, animator, sculptor, printmaker, musician, teacher…like tentacles. Are you a squid or an octopus?
SC: More like a caffeinated owl ….. your crediting me with a bit too many limbs. Looks like a Jack of all trades list….you looking to insult me!!
I’m gonna take those on one at a time….I illustrated in the 90′s to stay out of cubicle and restaurant gigs in New York City. Because of that I have no horrible job stories. I got to start freelancing a year out of college and live in Brooklyn, which was a playground back then. Especially for a suburban kid.
I’ve never animated-I created characters for animation in films for The Residents and television but they were animated by animators. I hand them a disc of drawings with descriptions of possible movements and interactions and they do the magical/technical part.
Sculptor. I’m intimidated by sculpture. So I feel like I’m getting away with something when I work with clay-like I’m cheating somehow. I like that I’m able to walk away from clay and come back to it later. I rarely let myself do that with drawing. Music is far less intimidating to me only because I’ve been playing since ’74. Sculpture is still new and scary, so I’ve been leaning into it more and more over the last 5 years.
Printmaker. Something is nice about having multiples that go off into the world and have different lives. I’ve started a new series of linoleum cuts with a technique I devised to cheat time .I can get three done in the span it took me took to do one. Pulling the prints is still painful though.
Teacher. I adjunct occasionally, not full-time. Maybe one day, freelancing is exhausting.
It took me years but ‘artist’ is okay with me as a job description nowadays. I don’t sense anything sparkly or extravagant in that word which is nice. An older woman approached me at an opening. She said “my nephew is an artist too.” I asked his name to see if I knew his work. She said “You wouldn’t know his name, he’s nine.” Me and that 9-year-old have an interesting line of business to tend with each day. He gets to play on the monkey bars though, I’m not that high on the ladder yet.
Detail ≈ I’ve been trying to replace detail with big gestures. My brain is having trouble with it but I’ll keep trying. I enjoy the residue of hard labor in detail, but I enjoy the residue of hard thinking even more. ≈
ma: No insult intended. I’m not sure I have the chops for that…But the ‘jack of all trades’ thing appears more prevalent to me these days, in some ways. Seems people push to do it all. I wasn’t aware there was a finish line.. Maybe it’s just more complex now in the modern world rather than more complicated. Or I’m just a cranky old bastard. I’ll get back to clay in a minute…
SC: Doing too much and being interested in too much isn’t a competitive action, just exhausting. But…I couldn’t deny that the very stereotypical American A-type exists. I think there are more opportunities out there after we all went global. You don’t have to “push” to have opportunities, you can land in them if you’re up to the challenge. I remember a world with 3 television channels, no cable tv or internet. You had to take a class or haunt libraries to learn about art or how to change the oil on your VW. Learning has become easier and quicker to find, but so has misinformation. Now the challenge is learning to sift through it all.
So, nope, no finish line; let’s take the chequered flag out the equation, but completion would be nice even if that’s probably too much to ask. In “realms of the unreal” -a documentary about the outside artist Henry Darger- a neighbor of his recounted visiting Henry on his death-bed. He told Darger how much he liked his work, which was the first time anyone other than the artist had seen it, to which Darger replied “Well, It’s too late now,” with a pained look on his face.
I’m not sure exactly how Hills appeared on the horizon. Like Hills’ music, that one is hard to pin down. Shrouded in a warm red-eyed haze, Hills’ music collapses a wide vista of influences and approaches into a sound that you may not be able to exactly put your finger, regardless of how focused their modus operandi may be. Two stellar albums in though, it’s clear that’s not the point. It’s a pulse they have their finger on; a throbbing pulse that is vibrant and alive whether it’s dissipating into space or firing up the boosters.
Rise Again :: Hills :: Master Sleeps (2011, Transubstans)
ma: When I first heard Hills (Kalle, Pelle, Tobias, Hanna), I thought the name was a perfect fit, for my own loose reasons. What does ‘hills’ mean to Hills?
Kalle: I don’t really know. When it came to me some years ago I just wanted to find a name which would in some way be representative of the music I wanted to do with the band, but then also not for the name to be genre-bound by its meaning, like Cannibal Corpse or something…Also, as I recall, I know that during the time I came up with the name I had been listening to Earth and I thought that was a great name for a band so I kind of wanted something in the same vein. It’s also a visual thing I guess. And also I had never heard the White Hills which I think were active back then as well. If I had I think I might have had a change of heart considering the name.
ma: What’s the ‘visual thing’ to you for Hills? It’s highly visual to me, if for the only reason that Hills leaves so much up to interpretation. I guess to me, by leaving so much up to me/the listener, you get around simply name-dropping your influences…you treat the listener as an equal…your music becomes more part of an ongoing story. Traditional in a sense. It’s like when I was a kid and saw 2001: A Space Odyssey; I knew what it was about, but I couldn’t tell you…
Kalle: I don’t know so much about the visual part…I get what you mean, but I guess that part is up the listener. We create the soundtrack and the listener creates the storyline and plot, the actual movie so to speak. I guess we all have our different “movies” going on while making/playing/listening to the music… When we’ve played live with visuals it is really awesome. It really adds to the whole experience. When I create a riff or something I just, well I don’t know what I do exactly, but I know when something is worth working on/bringing to rehearsal. At least most of the time I do…haha…There’s a feeling or something, a good groove and movie to go with it so to speak haha…Most of the time I don’t even know what my own songs are about.
What you say about the listener being an equal is really well said. From what I gather we are making music that mostly appeals to people whose interest in music stretches a bit out of the ordinary. And that is where I am at myself as well. Not really so interested in the charts you know . Most “new” music I hear is stuff that I read about somewhere (Optical Sounds Fanzine) or through recommendations I get from friends.
ma: There’s so much great music out of Sweden, of all kinds. Where do you see Hills in the scene? Are Hills filling a void, carrying on that tradition…maybe a bit of both?
Kalle: Yes, I guess so…there has always been quite a lot of good bands coming out of these parts of Scandinavia. As far as the Swedish psych scene goes it’s not too vast if I dare say so, but in all, punk, metal and so on there are a lot of good bands here. I guess I’m not the one to say if we fill a void or not, but our main goal has always been creating music that we would want to listen to our selves (somewhat of a cliché I know, but true nonetheless) and when we started out, the psychedelic scene was quite dead in Sweden except for bands like Dungen and probably a couple of others that I do not know of. I can only speak for myself, but I am heavily influenced by the Swedish 60s/70s scene and 60s/70s music in general, so in that regard I guess I am subconsciously and consciously channeling some of that influence through what I do with Hills. Bands like Träd, gräs & stenar, Persson Sound are an important part of my musical library.
"This show is 110% … one of the most consistently awesome programs we have come across."
The Sunrise Ocean Bender sets sail every Monday morning, 1 – 3 a.m. on WRIR lp 97.3 FM, to find something for your ears, and something for your head … From psych to prog to pop and whatever tributary we can find on the way … and right back around again. There might be a map, but the destination is up for grabs. If it all goes right, we may just get lost. Meet me at the muster station … it might be a long week.
The Tadpoles, in any form, have always had an off-kilter undercurrent running through them; often buried under layers of neo-psychedelia, often more overt. This loopy bag of tricky whiffs have often been hard to nail down as to where exactly it was coming from. That is, as Parker says, ‘until now.’ In some ways 
When we were first given the gift of hearing the music of Glasgow’s The Cosmic Dead – that music being among the most mesmerizing, the most powerful, the most cosmically calculated chanting chaos that we listened to, repeatedly, in the whole of 2011 – we found it hard not to reflect on another gift we were given some thirty-plus years previously.
Resonance ≈ Studio engineers and sound-men hate me. My drums ring because I won’t dampen with tape and all of those other knick knacks drummers invented so they don’t need to tune their drums. They don’t like hearing “when you’re done slapping duct tape all over my drumheads be sure to wrap up those guitars, they’re making ringing noises and notes.” Drums are an acoustic instrument when they’re tuned correctly. ≈ 
Detail ≈ I’ve been trying to replace detail with big gestures. My brain is having trouble with it but I’ll keep trying. I enjoy the residue of hard labor in detail, but I enjoy the residue of hard thinking even more. ≈ 
