Welcome to my reviews page. Every now and then I'll be delving into my personal record collection and digging out a few of the best new releases, re-issues, and maybe a few old classics to recommend to you, the highly discerning listener . This is not a reviews website so please don't send me your stuff - this is purely my personal tastes and opinions with no objectivity whatsoever! - Hypnotique

To kick off - I'm mining some of the gems from the emerging catalogue of my friends at Earthrid Records in Bimingham, UK. Earthrid are a small specialist label specialising in esoteric electronic music - from the sublime to the 'damn near unlistenable' as one reviewer put it! You can buy these CDs and others online direct from the label at astonishingly reasonable prices and hear sound samples, so I do hope you will enjoy these CDs as much as me and support other independent artists and record labels buy purchasing these records directly from them.

Audio Space Research- "Signals through the static"
Released 2003, Earthrid Records, AS01CR. Order online at www.earthrid.com

These live recordings were produced from 1995 to 1997 and knocked straight down to tape (the cassette variety) - although you may be mistaken in thinking you have been taken back in time to 1988 when the nation united with one voice and cried "Acciiid!!". But, like all the underground and eclectic music Earthrid Records showcase, this is no pop music - or even its distant cousin. Improvised on cantankerous analogue synthesizers, the three extended numbers on this CD range from squelchy thumbing acid-fulled grooves ('Strength Substitute') to more ethereal moments that seem to have come from a prehistoric era and transmitted through the cosmos to the medium of analogue synthesis (like the early Jean-Jacques Perrey album 'Musique De Cosmos' from 1960). Audio Space Research (so called from their proximity to the Space Research Centre in Leicester) are a project comprising of two other Earthrid artists - Eve Thacker (Evematic) and Kevin Busby (Carya Amara). If you like analogue synthesis in its most raw and challenging incarnation, get on your spaceship, tune into this cosmic vibe and zoom on in to the Signals Through The Static (painstakingly cleaned up for your listening pleasure!).

On this tip: Experimental Audio Research, Sonic Boom, Tom Dissvelt & Kid Baltan

Evematic - "Bisonogram"
Released 2004, Earthrid Records, EM01CR. Order online at www.earthrid.com

Although this is her debut release under the name Evematic, Eve Thacker has been performing experimental electronic music for many decades, and the maturity in her style shines through in Bisonogram. All track titles are inspired by the wild, wild west - 'Any Witch Way', 'Bisonogram' and 'Past Tents' are particuarly stand out. But despite the poor puns you do get a feeling of the barrenness of the Great Plains and vast desertlands, however, this is not the bravado of Clint Eastwood and Ennio Morricone but the incantations and spells of the Red Indian tribesmen and you are trapped forever in this desolate place - with no means of returning to Kansas! Be warned: lead track 'Native American Construct' immediately takes you to a very dark and mystical land (made me want to hide under my poncho), although the album has more light and humouristic moments like 'On the Cow-Pat Line' with echoes of Tomita's Moog style and 'Bisonogram', which has a 60s pyschedelic tinge. Neither ambient nor electroacoustic, Evematic's purely electronic music lies between the two and provides moments of lo-fi musical terrors versus more refined 'mood' moments, yet this is almost a soundtrack to a not yet conceptualised movie than a typical album; if they did make the movie of Bisonogram it would be directed by David Lynch, star Max Schrek (the vampire in Nosferatu) and make the Spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Corbucci look like a saddle-up cowboy movie starring Ronald Reagan. So stoke up your peace pipe, climb aboard the Buffalo Express and wig-wam out with Bisonogram. Pow-Wow-Wow!

On this tip: Sonic Boom, Pierre Henry, Tarwater, Tomita

Carya Amara - "Tales of the Unattractive"
Released 2002, Earthrid Records, CA03CR. Order online at www.earthrid.com

This retrospective of work from the long running solo musical project Carya Amara delves into the earlier catalogue from 1980 - 1991 of miniature works and some shorter sound fragments, and has been dragged from tape archives, dusted down and presented close to its original form.

More of a window into the strange musical workings of early Carya Amara than a typical 'album' - on Tales of The Unattractive you can hear the sounds of seagulls from a custom electronic circuit, an advertising disk hideously mangled, the sounds of torn and blown waste paper plus analogue synthesis with barely the most primitive of modifications. There is a vast sonic range across the collection - from the electronic harmonium sound of 'Between Light Sleep' (created with sticky tape holding down the keys of a reed organ with a mic swung above and played at half speed for a phase drone effect) to the dark sounds of 'Disfigured Night' (think music from Halloween), and various structural experiments like 'Falling Apart' (which literally falls in and out of sync - but forget about the poseuring of Steve Reich). 'Treat' and 'Ode to Joy' are the most fully worked tracks, the latter being less an ode to joy than 'anger, hate, despair and loneliness' - but with a beat you can dance to - perfect for your gothic discotheque. My favourites are 'Hello?', a premonition of the sounds of a modem, and 'Tech Platonics', Keith Emerson goes Casiotone.

Peppered with the artist's trademark kitsch film dialogue samples, this is like a trip back to the Carya Amara electronic music school, whose lessons in dark humour will certainly be appreciated by any fans of the cult horror films 'Dr Phibes'. Minimistically composed and produced relatively lo-fi, you'll rarely find more than one simple idea at play in each tune but appreciated Tales of the Unattractive for what it is - a collection of ideas, moods and musical colours - the musical equivalent of a Mars selection box. Attractive these tales may not be, but this is a welcome companion album to the more recent and sophisticated "Vestigal Digital" recordings.

On this tip: Early Human League, Goblin, Spectrum, Pyschic TV

Back to main Texts page