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.

 

 

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.

Autumn 2012 Mix by Christopher Budd on Mixcloud

Belbury Youth Club - Glasgow - Halloween

Its Belbury Youth Club night next Wednesday at Glasgow's Mono, with a live set from Pye Corner Audio. There will be an exhibition of Julian House's artwork put together especially for the event, which will run for  a week or so after the event in the Mono Cafe, some of the art will be for sale as well as some exclusive new posters.  

Advance tickets are £10 at wegotickets, or in person at Tickets Scotland or Monorail. There'll also be a few on the doors at £12.  Doors are at 7:30, and activities will start off straight away with our film programme. Here's the schedule for the evening...

 

 

Happy Days: The Children of the Stones BBC R4

Having grumbled about the BBC in an earlier post I'd like to draw parishioners attention to what they do so well. This is Stewart Lee's fantastic documentary about Children of the Stones.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01n1rbx/Happy_Days_The_Children_of_the_Stones/
 

Pre-Order Sleep Games

The new album from Pye Corner Audio, Sleep Games is available now from the Ghost Box shop. Release date is 19th October.

 

Please note due to a manufacturing delay Ghost Box won't be able to get stock out to the usual stockists by the release date. Apologies for this, but if you prefer to get your copy in your local record store you'll have to hang on until end of the month.

Spacedog and Listening Center next on Study Series

Two new Ghost Box Study Series singles are planned for early 2013. One will be a collaboration between Belbury Poly and Brighton's remarkable cabaret-folk-automata-electronics performers, Spacedog . The other is from Listening Center, the work of  New York based composer, David Mason. This single will also feature a Listening Centre remix by Pye Corner Audio.

 

Until then you can enjoy the excellent new Listening Centre album, Example One, DL only at the moment from iTunes, Amazon and Bandcamp.

 

Ghost Box Autumn Sale

There's a mini autumn sale starting this week in the Ghost Box shop. Including bundle deals on our most recent albums on vinyl or CD and offers on some back catalogue CD titles.

Sleep Games due 19th October

 

Sleep Games is the new album from the latest Ghost Box recruit Pye Corner Audio. There's echoes of John Carpenter, Italo horror soundtracks and a kind of post rave meltdown in PCA's submerged disco and spectral electronics. Something of a new sound to the world of Ghost Box but at the same time its an uncannily perfect fit.

It'll be available on the 19th October on Vinyl, CD and Download. More info and pre-order details here and on the Ghost Box website soon but meanwhile here are some clips to whet your appetite.

 

An Advisory Circle Summer's End Mix

 

 

The Magic Fountain

Here's an impossibly weird nugget of low budget 70s kid's TV, with music by Alan Hawkshaw. Kindly brought to my attention by Ben of Toys and Techniques.

Pye Corner Audio and Stratus

This October Ghost Box will release a new album from the latest addition to their roster, Pye Corner Audio. Its titled Sleep Games and it'll be available on vinyl and CD with sleeve notes by Mark (k-punk) Fisher. Clips, dates and more info soon here and at the Ghost Box website, but meanwhile here's a rare peak at some of Julian House's developing artwork concepts.

Martin Jenkins of Pye Corner is also one half of the filmic, psychy, expansive sounding Stratus and their new self release album is available now on download and CD here. This is a beautifully produced and massive sounding album,  that you really should check out.

The title As the Crow Flies is not to be confused with the Advisory Circle album of the same name - by a remarkable coincidence and unbeknownst to each artist both albums were titled at exactly the same time. Both groups stuck to their guns agreeing to take it as an auspicious sign that they were on to something good.

Sandokan

Just came across this title sequence, no idea what it is, but I love it. Anyone ?

Berberian Sound Studio

We're very excited here about the new film by Peter Strickland. Starring Toby Jones, soundtrack by Broadcast and titles and design by Ghost Box's own Julian house. 31st August.

The Ghosts of Bush

Some of you may be familiar with Robin the Fog from Jonny Trunk's wonderful OST show on Resonance FM, but Robin (Warren)'s day or more usually night time job was as a studio manager at the BBC's World Service in Bush House, in London.

Before the BBC finally left Bush House in July, Robin put in some long and late hours haunting its massive Portland stone corridors to capture the sounds of the building and produced a Radiophonic sound collage of the results in one of the basement studios. I use the word "Radiophonic" in its strictest sense here, given that the album was produced entirely on tape using found sound sources and hand edited and produced in a BBC studio. Although not an official BBC recording, I think its fair to say that this may be the very last piece of true Radiophonics that will ever be produced. There's an interview with Robin at The Quietus here , and below is a clip from a World Service programme about the making of the album.


"The Ghosts of Bush" is a beautiful monument to the work of the World Service during its 70 year tenure here and more importantly perhaps to this awe inspiring building. Declared the most expensive building in the world when it was built in 1929 and said to be the inspiration for Orwell's Ministry of Truth.  The soundscape is more mournful than ghostly to my ears, really capturing a sense of loss - with beautiful moments when mechanical and ambient sounds swell out with an almost choral or orchestral feel. All the more impressive when you consider no artificial reverbs or other digital effects were used. I get the sense that this love letter to a building has been recorded and presented with great humility by Robin - light on concepts, ego,  mission statements and artifice (unlike a GB project )  and topped off with a pleasingly daft tip of the hat to Eno and Byrne in the title.



You can listen to the project below and also download here on Robin's blog where you can  pre-order a very limited edition vinyl copy of the album. Please pay generously for this as all proceeds will be donated to BBC Media Action (formerly The World Service Trust), helping  to 'harness the power of media and communication to help reduce poverty and assist women, children and men to claim their rights'.

Belbury Youth Club night, Glasgow, October 31st

Tickets available now from here.

Radio Belbury Programme No. 10

English Game

Free Land Equivalents Track

Jim Musgrave, ace drummer, Land Equivalents main man and occasional Belbury Poly rhythm section has just offered up this free blissed out dub version of  "...to spare the defeated". Give it a whirl here.

Wilder Mann - Charles Fréger

You may have noticed things have been quiet here for  a while, well we've just moved into a new vicarage, and I was very pleasantly surprised to receive a copy of this from a good friend as a house warming present.

 Its a collection of photographs from around Europe by Charles Fréger of what can loosely be termed "Wild Men". These are costumed folk characters from various traditions all representing the wild and atavistic element of  human communities that are variously celebrated or purged during ritual festivals. In the UK we're familiar with burry men, obby osses, green men and mummers but these look like rented fancy dress costumes compared to these scary beauties. Below are a few of my favourites from Charles  Fréger's website. The UK version of the book is available here.

All images from Wilder Mann , 2010 © Charles Fréger