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20% off 2020 Disciples releases continues throughout this weekend, just enter code DISCIPLESCOUNT when you checkout. I'm going to write about all of them in turn and just you try and stop me mother.
https://disciples.bandcamp.com/
Here's the Part 1 thread:
https://disciples.bandcamp.com/
Here's the Part 1 thread:
1/ Phew - Vertical Jamming. When I first met up with @originalphew to discuss the possibility of putting something out, one of the first things she said to me was "everyone wants to talk to me about what I did in 1981, it's so boring".
1/ (continued) Luckily my two favourite records in the Phew discography were the two most recent albums, Light Sleep and Voice Hardcore. Whilst she's made great records throughout her career, these two are modern classics as far as I'm concerned.
1/ (continued) A lot of the newer music is almost entirely self-produced, in contrast with the Phew history of remarkable collaboration with members of YMO, Can, Einstürzende Neubauten, The Raincoats, D.A.F. etc, what a list!
1/ (continued) The two main pieces on this tape come from a 2016 Japanese CD release that was only sold on tour. We also added the previously unreleased "Encore" to the digital release. Epic and immersive drone stunners from an artist at the very top of her game.
2/ Bogdan Raczynski - Samurai Math Beats. One of my first jobs in music (after several years of factories, washing dishes and call centres) was working in the warehouse of SRD, who distributed the Rephlex label.
2/ (continued) Rephlex had recently released 3 albums in quick succession by Bogdan, about which little was known, super cryptic albums of oddball music. What was this? Humorous, sad, deranged collisions of frenetic breaks, slurred dialogue samples and rinky-dink casio melodies.
2/ (continued) The only pictures of Bogdan that circulated at the time showed him wearing a dress staring wistfully at a pile of rubbbish, or carrying some empty cans of paint, or pushing a shopping trolley.
2 (continued) There was a healthy dose of jungle in the rhythms that Bogdan constructed, but it sounded more like someone had read a description of jungle and then tried to construct their own version on some cheap tracker software.
2/ (continued) Being allowed into Bogdan's archives of unreleased tracks to compile Rave 'Til You Cry was a real thrill, and having this early braindance classic back on wax and no longer only available at collector scum prices felt like a worthy follow-up.
3/ Model Home - One Year. I was first prompted to check out Model Home by Mike McGonigal, writer of the His Name Is Alive sleevenotes.
3/ (continued) Mike had caught the duo live in Detroit and wrote something along the lines of "if the On-U Sound label had started today rather that in 1981, this is the kind of eclectic, cross-genre hybrid sound you could imagine them releasing."
3/ (continued) One of my other jobs is looking after the On-U catalogue so I had to check this out, and whilst there wasn't an immediate sonic parallel, I could see what Mike was getting at: the same wild car crash of influences and DIY spirit discernible in early On-U sides
3/ (continued) Especially early work by the New Age Steppers or Mark Stewart (who infamously used to bring live bootleg tapes of blown-out reggae soundclashes to the studio and ask Adrian Sherwood to make his own music sound more like the ferric chaos on those cassettes)
3/ (continued) It's always compelling when you come across an artist furiously constructing their own little world, clear that they would be doing this whether 1 person was listening or 1 million, and there was a ton of music to dive into straight away with Model Home
3/ (continued) A palpable energy of on-the-fly ideas and the joy of creating something new. The combination of Nappa's flow and FX-blitzed vocals with Pat Cain's gnarly production and inventive rhythms is just total magic to my ears.
3/ (continued) I try not to take issue with reviews of our releases, different people are going to hear different things, but one cliché written about Model Home is that their music is super-obtuse or avant-garde.
3/ (continued) I do not hear that at all, to me these are pop hits, lo-fi in execution for sure, but continuing the promise that pop contained in the Missy/Timbaland era: disconcertingly new sounds with nagging hooks.
