Friday, November 30, 2012

Belbury Youth Club Posters

There are three new Belbury Youth Club posters designed by Julian House in the Ghost Box shop today.

There are two A2 generic BYC posters and an A3 poster designed for our recent Youth Club event in Glasgow. All three are printed on luxuriously heavy 200gsm paper. These are only available on line in the Ghost Box shop.

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Today Bread, Tomorrow Secrets



A new album from Moon Wiring Club has just arrived at the vicarage. Well actually its two albums, well no its kind of one. Anyway its two discs with the same title. As always in the world of MWC nothing is straight forward or quite what it seems, and I think the easiest way to describe this delightful new package is as one album released across two formats.

The LP carries the moody, atmospheric beat free numbers, a slightly more "electronic" sound than we'd usually expect from MWC, beautifully arranged and well suited to the format. It sounds like someone has spiked your Earl Grey with something that appears to cause time slippages and facilitate communication with animals.

The CD takes us right into more familiar territory where we gavotte-hop the night away with chimeric Edwardian ladies.  Sorry to sound like a tw*t, but this is the clearest picture I can give you of both.


Its the best production sound of any of Ian Hodgson's albums to date, thanks I'm guessing to the paternalistic technical guidance of Jon "Advisory Circle" Brooks. Listen out for the mystery recorder playing guest too.

I won't even attempt to describe Mr. Hodgson's artwork except to say its  as lavish, lovely and insanely detailed as ever. The devil, as they don't say, is in the millinery and confectionery. Bonkers.

For more information and  equal amounts of obfuscation check the MWC website, Blank Workshop. Release date 33rd November apparently.



Friday, November 09, 2012

Julian House Exhibition, Mono, Glasgow

Following on from the Ghost Box Belbury Youth Club event at Mono in Glasgow this October, The Good Press Gallery are hosting an exhibition of print work and artefacts made by graphic designer Julian House.
 
The pieces on display here hint at unusual cult activity centred around the parallel world town of Belbury, and expand on the fictional world explored in the music and artwork of Ghost Box records.
 
The exhibition will run until the end of the year, is free and open daily at Mono, 12 Kings Court, Glasgow
 
A selection of limited edition A2 and A3 prints are for sale through the Good Press shop located inside Mono. If you are unable to visit the exhibition but would like to purchase please contact goodpressgallery@gmail.com . Monorail Records also in Mono is a Ghost Box stockist.
 
 

Thursday, November 08, 2012

Cults and Parry

Now that you've got your copy of Pye Corner Audio's Sleep Games and you're wondering what to spend this month's record money on, I'd highly recommend either of these LPs, kindly sent to the vicarage by two of my favourite record labels.
This first comes from Trunk Records and is a re-issue of a rather obscure but rather wonderful privately pressed album by The Cults Percussion Ensemble.  Assembled from several Aberdeenshire schools in 1976 by percussion teacher, Robin Forbes and made up of female students with an average age of 14 including one Evelyn Glennie.
Its a surprisingly delicate and hypnotic sound, which as Jonny Trunk points out in the liner notes is not dissimilar to Carl Orff's Schulwerk records. Beautiful Cover art by Paul Flack and expertly remastered by Jon Brooks. I haven't found the obligatory Trunk Records typos yet, maybe they've been specially reserved for the CD version. Preview and buy it here .

The other one from Public Information Records is a marvellous compilation of music cues from the Canadian library label Parry, Tomorrow’s Achievements: Parry Music Library 1976-86.
The album is geared toward melodic, electronic tunes and features a who's who of international library artists.
"Johnny Hawksworth, Robin Artus, Paul Kass, Nino Nardini (close allies with Roger Roger) are on board Tomorrow’s Achievements . At the same time we have a little known Canadian Library musician who features heavily, one Harry Forbes.Forbes is the real driving force of our Parry-Love; a master of imminent, hummable melody, sublime synth miniatures baked in sweetness. Elsewhere we revel with the other players in proto-Balearic house, groovy electronic disco, spooked choral drone, freaked-modular scorch, weird Radiophonic bleep. These are the soundtracks to movie car chases never known, lost kids TV shows never realized, radio-ads never broadcast – music to make your ears sing for more." say Public Info. Get it here .



And apart from anything else both LPs have pleasingly complimentary covers.

Budd's Mix

Multi instrumentalist and Belbury Poly sessions man, Christopher Budd has put together an amazing joyful mix. Give it a spin and you'll almost certainly find yourself doing a funny little dance like I'm doing.