WashYourHands' Top 23 (+77)
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Murphy
cat malogen
Right, last three CV. Couldn’t leave these out. Apologies, it’s not a perfect world.
The first is notorious due to the sample source never being revealed. In interviews Mallinder and Kirk stated it was recorded onto tape from a tv in a US hotel room while touring, but those snippets of info never led anywhere, least of all the source. It sounds like cinema, although I think the interviews referenced an evangelical production of sorts. Whoever they are, the tone is so strange, drawing in two characters Berry Berry and Gypsy being reborn, Jesus, divination and something coming true. A grail quest that remains open.
The YT clip comes in slightly earlier than predicted, but in the context of the lp it leapt out during the first few listens, breaking up the actual music. I’ve heard it played as a bridge in Weatherall’s sets live and even though it doesn’t amount to much, the sheer volume of time spent searching for the source warrants including. Play from 15 to 16 seconds in
An ugly funked-up, sample-driven groove that I forgot to include among the first CV post. So here it is. A Jimmy Swaggart-esque tv evangelist crows for increasingly weighty financial sacrifices, upping the donation amounts for rewards, like something out of a dystopian fusion of Ballard and Chaucer. America as a perverse theatre of spectacle, unimaginable until integrated in these few minutes
Lastly, a tune that should just be listened to. My favourite from the height of their commercial success and a big hint of where Mr Kirk would head to next re forthcoming solo projects. Stunning
The first is notorious due to the sample source never being revealed. In interviews Mallinder and Kirk stated it was recorded onto tape from a tv in a US hotel room while touring, but those snippets of info never led anywhere, least of all the source. It sounds like cinema, although I think the interviews referenced an evangelical production of sorts. Whoever they are, the tone is so strange, drawing in two characters Berry Berry and Gypsy being reborn, Jesus, divination and something coming true. A grail quest that remains open.
The YT clip comes in slightly earlier than predicted, but in the context of the lp it leapt out during the first few listens, breaking up the actual music. I’ve heard it played as a bridge in Weatherall’s sets live and even though it doesn’t amount to much, the sheer volume of time spent searching for the source warrants including. Play from 15 to 16 seconds in
An ugly funked-up, sample-driven groove that I forgot to include among the first CV post. So here it is. A Jimmy Swaggart-esque tv evangelist crows for increasingly weighty financial sacrifices, upping the donation amounts for rewards, like something out of a dystopian fusion of Ballard and Chaucer. America as a perverse theatre of spectacle, unimaginable until integrated in these few minutes
Lastly, a tune that should just be listened to. My favourite from the height of their commercial success and a big hint of where Mr Kirk would head to next re forthcoming solo projects. Stunning
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Murphy
cat malogen
Richard H Kirk. If there’s one musician I’d dearly love to say thank you to in person, it’s this man.
That he could manoeuvre between such varied sound worlds is maybe only equalled by Coil imho. Synesthesia has already been drafted in and I’m still struck by its ingenuity of expression - cutting up and interweaving 3 or 4 core elements, introducing patterns, disrupting them - so that your ears embrace the overall lulling motion interspersed and intercut with static and swells of rising harmonics. TG could do one or the other, but never both in the same track. Black Jesus Voice is like a bad trip. You’ve no idea how many times that was put on by someone while tripping to howls of ‘no, it’s toooo much, toooooooo much’.
To contrast this style we should jump ahead, skipping forward to the fag end of the rave scene. Kirk released 4 to 5 seminal lp’s, all within a really short timeframe under different aliases. In no particular order - Virtual State and The Number of Magic, Sandoz’s Intensely Radioactive, Electronic Eye’s Closed Circuit and Sweet Exorcist’s Spirit Guide to Low Tech. An incredible body of work in itself. At the time it was a miraculous series of revelations.
Each incorporate low to mid tempo ambient 4x4. As noted previously, almost companion pieces to Selected Ambient Works. Heavy on reverb, each lp offers up so many gems. I’ve heard these lp’s contents played live in old chill out rooms/tents and pitched up slightly on Sunday afternoons at comedown sessions at a pub in Nottingham we used to hijack after slithering home completely annihilated. They remain some of my favourite ever lp’s, just might need a few days to pick the appropriate highlights, but if you have the time plough into them at your pace. They offer any listener genuine delights.
That he could manoeuvre between such varied sound worlds is maybe only equalled by Coil imho. Synesthesia has already been drafted in and I’m still struck by its ingenuity of expression - cutting up and interweaving 3 or 4 core elements, introducing patterns, disrupting them - so that your ears embrace the overall lulling motion interspersed and intercut with static and swells of rising harmonics. TG could do one or the other, but never both in the same track. Black Jesus Voice is like a bad trip. You’ve no idea how many times that was put on by someone while tripping to howls of ‘no, it’s toooo much, toooooooo much’.
To contrast this style we should jump ahead, skipping forward to the fag end of the rave scene. Kirk released 4 to 5 seminal lp’s, all within a really short timeframe under different aliases. In no particular order - Virtual State and The Number of Magic, Sandoz’s Intensely Radioactive, Electronic Eye’s Closed Circuit and Sweet Exorcist’s Spirit Guide to Low Tech. An incredible body of work in itself. At the time it was a miraculous series of revelations.
Each incorporate low to mid tempo ambient 4x4. As noted previously, almost companion pieces to Selected Ambient Works. Heavy on reverb, each lp offers up so many gems. I’ve heard these lp’s contents played live in old chill out rooms/tents and pitched up slightly on Sunday afternoons at comedown sessions at a pub in Nottingham we used to hijack after slithering home completely annihilated. They remain some of my favourite ever lp’s, just might need a few days to pick the appropriate highlights, but if you have the time plough into them at your pace. They offer any listener genuine delights.
luka
Well-known member
CV definitely very '80s. it reminds me of all sorts of other things from the same sort of time. other deliberately dilletantish and satirical music like my life in the bush of ghosts, and things which set out with different intentions but arrive in the same space, eg jon hassell. those thin cheapo drum sounds and so on. the collage/cut up aesthetic.
Murphy
cat malogen
Interlude.
Funeral tunes, not in a morbid sense. Songs played that shake your being from the heaviness of their truth. I've heard the following sung by friends, family, chanters, small groups, played on records, cd's and mp3's. They bond you in moments that fair take your breath away. There are tons of versions out there - The Clancy Brothers, Davey Arthur and the Fureys, The Chieftains and a uilleann piper named John McSherry - add people just going at it. If the wreck heads at the football start, it all floods back and for those few minutes you transcend in communion. Yes, a few are rebel songs, but even our most modern human souls can access those depths of experience and The Dubs are always a sound porthole into this universe of being
Funeral tunes, not in a morbid sense. Songs played that shake your being from the heaviness of their truth. I've heard the following sung by friends, family, chanters, small groups, played on records, cd's and mp3's. They bond you in moments that fair take your breath away. There are tons of versions out there - The Clancy Brothers, Davey Arthur and the Fureys, The Chieftains and a uilleann piper named John McSherry - add people just going at it. If the wreck heads at the football start, it all floods back and for those few minutes you transcend in communion. Yes, a few are rebel songs, but even our most modern human souls can access those depths of experience and The Dubs are always a sound porthole into this universe of being
pattycakes_
Can turn naughty
That's by design to make it more unsettling
Murphy
cat malogen
Good addition. I couldn’t include them all but add what works for you. Again, it‘s that sinister alien funk that they own. The vocal work, ethereal synth runs, completely uncompromising percussive choices. The paradox is making a thickly brewed groove out of those ingredients and this is what diminishes as the 80’s evolved.
Had a scout around and seems it might be some doc/film about born-again Hell's Angels. Then again...
IdleRich
IdleRich
I know exactly what you mean about it sounding brittle and i think a lot of post-punk has that kind of feel to it. Post-punk is often described as spiky and I think that's really the same feel from a slightly different perspective. So I don't at all disagree with what you're saying (in that respect, although I think the good stuff achieves force none the less) - nor do I think that that spiky/brittleness is necessarily a bad thing - I'm just pointing out that, given that we both agree that much of CV tends to have that sound; that tune, as you might expect given that it's a kind of electronic dub thing, has a fatter sound than much of their other output.
Edit: Check out how much punctuation I used there!