MV & EE Hick Smoke

Child Of Microtone releases are, for me, like letters from long lost friends on the other side of the world complete with photographs and drawings in the margin. Little bundles of sonic art to transport you into the orbit of the source. Home made with care and grown for potency.
It strikes me that I don't really have any interest in writing exacting reviews about music. I'm more interested in how music intersects with my consciousness. What it triggers in me and what laterals it sends me along.
The first time I listened to Hick Smoke I was on a plane to Italy.
Hardly ideal listening conditions and I'd had to get up very early so my eyes were sore and my skin was prickly and felt like it didn't fit properly. My headphones though enclosed couldn't nullify the engine noise so I cranked the volume.
As Nodes began I felt a wave of disorientation caused by the tremolo and panning effects. My head felt like it was buzzing I thought about switching it off but then decided to ride the sucker out. By the time I'd hit Interstellar Allah I'd pretty well dissolved my surroundings into my daydreams. Eyes shut images flowing purple retina burns from the sun above the clouds. This pretty much continued for the rest of the album. By the end of the last track with its old 78 surface noise I was feeling almost vapourous in my seat not quite solid enough to reconnect. You know what they say 'your either on the plane or off the plane'. About this time the drinks cabinet arrived for a little in flight refuelling.

Doctor's Note

Two nights ago had a dream in which MV was playing an electric oud shaped instrument with paired strings. 57 Chevy surf green body with white pick guard.
Later he was in a TV studio walking away from me. A robotic voice over was saying 'come back I can make you a famous pop star'. MV ignored this and walked into a cave shaped opening in a polystyrene wall. After he had passed through stage hands appeared and sealed up the cave entrance with polystyrene blocks.

CP Plays WJ

It's late, freezing cold and I'm waiting for a train to get me home. I'm leaving a slowly dying town on the South Coast. At least that's what the Czech taxi driver told me. After a couple of days of being there I'm inclined to agree.
I spend a lot of time listening to music on trains. I listen to a lot of music from the peripheries. Neil Young said something about avoiding the middle of the road by lurching from ditch to ditch. A lot of the time I feel like I'm sitting in a nearby field watching the smoke from the crash.
It's not all free jazz psychedelic outsider freak out for me although I do love all that. Even when I don't like it, I like that it's there. Tonight I'm listening to Chuck Prophet doing his version of the Dreaming My Dreams album by Waylon Jennings, which is pretty straight ahead. It's called Dreaming Waylon's Dreams.
I'm a guitar fan and as much as I like a guitar pushing an amp into howling overdrive and feedback, I love me some twangy geetah or even a bit of gentle Tal Farlowe jazz tone. Yeah, I like the clean sound.
Now Chuck has a real knock out guitar tone. He doesn't have some fancy 1957 Fender Telecaster he plays a Squier with an odd tuner on the low E string but the mojo is in the fingers.
Odd thing to do covering an entire album but I really like this one. It's not note for note or even tune for tune. His version of The Door Is Always Open for example is fantastically off kilter and quickly descends from a kind of nonchalant monologue to deranged psychosis with spooky organ and desperate echoing rants.
On the train now. It's not warm and I'm full of cold and I just realised I've got to change trains again. Ugh. I could do a few echoing rants myself.
What else can I tell you about the record. Eh....the cute girl in Rough Trade East who sold it to me looked me in the eye and said 'enjoy' when I bought it, a totally random selection by the way, so I left the shop with a good vibe. Me and an old accomplice had just had great Indian food down Brick Lane and were having a great day.
It has definitely not been a one listen wonder. I couldn't go into a track by track description but if you think you could get into a countryish, twangy guitar thing with a curveball or two check it out.
I know this is a bit of a random post but I need to raid the medicine cabinet and get some sleep. Writing it kept my mind off how woozy I feel.
Thanks for tuning in.
Doc J

Roy Harper - Lifemask

Sunday in October, sunny and warm somewhere on the South Coast. Feeling a little distance between me and the rest of the world I grabbed a couple of CDs and headed out in the car. Drove along leafy lanes, sun strobing through the foliage then out on top of the downs to take in the view across hills and fields. To the West the sea was sparkling in the sun.
The soundtrack to all this was Roy Harper's Lifemask album. An early 70's gem that just wouldn't get made today. Incredible to think it was released by a major label like EMI and recorded at Abbey Road.
I wonder if Roy ever explained to the record execs that side two was a twenty plus minute track whose catalyst was a mind altered journey into an oil painting of Geronimo's face. Don't believe me? It's all there in the sleeve notes.
That track, The Lord's Prayer, is something I've lost myself in many times over the years. I always found with Roy you could listen to him on several levels. Often individual lines would remove themselves from the context of the song and start entirely new trains of thought in my mind. 'Whose systems are white sticks tapping walls', was one that always set my cogs turning. Of course in younger days I had more time to spend on dreamy afternoons with my record collection. This was long before the training started.
I can't really say a lot about this track as you have to experience it for yourself. The first few times I heard it I wasn't sure about it but it certainly grew on me over time. As the man says 'don't be afraid of it, it's only a movie'.
In vinyl terms side A begins with Highway Blues which sends me flashing back to my own hitch-hiking days. One day your having to sleep in a freezing aluminium toolshed by a motorway because you couldn't get a ride. Another day you're haring around the countryside in an open top sports car.
Side A is relatively much more straight ahead songs but all with the RH signature. During this period his use of the studio was excellent. Listen to the lovely analog echo fade out of Little Lady, listen to it on a nice stereo loud. An aching tragedy that one.
South Africa which closes the A side is also beautiful in its production but the song just transcends everything for me. For Roy a dream in song that came true.
There are a couple of other tracks and although it's not my favourite Roy Harper album it is strangely enough the one I listen to the most.
It certainly felt like an old friend today. Like time travel.

Greetings

So begins my journey into the bloglands and why the hell not.

I shall be writing about music and anything else that comes my way.



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