Nuclear Weapon Effects Computer

This was given to me by a friend who found a box full of them while filming in a disused MOD base on Portsdown hill overlooking Portsmouth. Its made from two white cardboard discs with a clear plastic indicator and held together with a brass hinge.

 So dialling the arrow at the bottom to a modest 5 Megaton bomb, and moving my indicator to my bunker's location at 4 miles from the centre of the blast, I see there is heavy to light damage to houses. Surprisingly, no one is dead but 10% are trapped in rubble. Of those not trapped 6% are seriously injured. I am further inconvenienced by "severe vehicle displacement".

Official advice therefore, as it tells us on teatowels and mugs up and down the country is to "Keep Calm and Carry On".

Severe Vehicle Displacement

You can find this and many other interesting objects donated by the curators, at Mark Fisher's Found Objects blog.

Position Normal

Always nice to see new faces in church.

Here's an excellent documentary all about the marvellous Position Normal by Anthony Collins of The Eel

It features Position Normal, K-Punk, Woebot, David Moynihan, Blue Firth and some music by The Focus Group and (I think) The Caretaker .

and if that wasn't enough there's an interview here too.

Super Impose - Kinsale

Running all this week and ending Sunday 18th, at the KAW Gallery 2 in Kinsale, Ireland is a screenprint exhibtion called Super Impose.

It features work by Hannah Galvin-Horne, Marianne Keating, Ghost Box's Julian House and Mat Cook (House's colleague at the Intro Design Partnerhip ).

House

 

 Cook (from a series titles Music, Paranoia & Booze)

 

 

More information here and here .

 

Cafe Kaput glimpses Study Series

Mr. Brooks tries to gets his grubby paws on the first Ghost Box Study Series singles here.

Moon Wiring Club Elementary Ice Cream Sunstroke Mix

Here's a marvellous podcast mix by Moon Wiring Club. Its ideal for a long hot Friday afternoon  so take the phone off the hook, send the young intern out for 99s and take all your clothes off.

Features Coil, Position Normal, The Radiophonic Workshop, John Carpenter and of course Basil Rathbone.

The Belbury Village Shop

The Belbury Village shop is now open for business. The first items in our shop are these Belbury Poly T shirts, screen printed on high quality heavy weight cotton and available in a wide variety of sizes in Ladies' or Mens' styles. These are entirley exclusive to the village shop.  

If your reading this on The Belbury Parish Magazine blog you can visit the shop over on the right hand side of this page. If not click here to come inside.

Customers outside the UK please note that the shop can not yet take your orders, but if you'd like to order write to us here to arrange payment by Paypal.

Séance at Notting Hill Gate

 

A couple of weeks ago workmen re-opened a tunnel in London's Notting Hill Gate tube station sealed since 1959 when escalators were installed to replace the lifts. This revealed a hoard of untouched posters which are soon to be removed and archived by The Museum of London. The pictures were taken by Mikey Ashworth for London Underground and the full set can be seen here.

Daytrip to Hollingsville

Music critic and author Ken Hollings dropped a note through the vicarage door to let us know that a recent episode of his Resonance FM show, Hollingsville entitled "Dreams: While the City Sleeps", features Julian House talking about dreams, cutups and sixties spectral transmissions  and is available as a podcast from this link.

Also the June issue of INTO, the sound and music online publication, has just put up a shortened version of  Ken's essay 'Spaceship UK' . This was commissioned for The Sonar festival and presents a history of British electronic music including Tristram Carey, Joe Meek, The Radiophonic Workshop, and Ghost Box in a context of British science fiction and bygone visions of the future.

You can catch more hot air from the Ghost Box curators here, in a recording of Saturday's event at the Roundhouse in Camden, "Moving Through Old Daylight". Archived courtesy of  Mark Pilkington.

Redesigned Ghost Box Website

The Ghost Box website has been redesigned. The site is now easier to navigate and you'll find new artwork, audio clips and other content on the Look and Listen page. Explore and enjoy.

By the way you can now subcribe to The Belbury Parish Magazine by following GhostBoxRecords on Twitter.

The Outer Church featuring Moon Wiring Club

If you're in Brighton on Wednesday June 9th I'd recommend getting along to Joe Stannard's Outer Church, an occasional night of  Prog, Psych, Krautrock & Electronics. This time the guest of honour will be Moon Wiring Club. Its at The Penthouse @ The Freebutt in Brighton, and admission is free.

While you're in Brighton why not drop into Resident Music in North Laine, a rather excellent record shop and Ghost Box stockist. Tell them the vicar sent you.

Parallel Lives

A Film by Alex Proyas
Music by John Foxx & Steve D’Agostino

Ghost Box Study Series Singles

Ghost Box is about to release the first two parts of a regular series of seven inch and download singles.

The first two singles will be available from the Ghost Box shop from the 2nd July. Study Series 01, titled "Youth and Recreation" is the result of  collaboration between Belbury Poly and Moon Wiring Club.

Study Series 02, "Cycles and Seasons" by The Advisory Circle, features a special vocal version of the Advisory Circle track Seasons, called Seasons Change by Hong Kong in the 60s.

The series will feature new work from the Ghost Box artists and feature new music, collaborations and remixes by a variety of guests including Mordant Music, Moon Wiring Club, Jonny Trunk, Hong Kong in the 60s, Xylitol, and James Cargill & Trish Keenan (of Broadcast).

Sharp eyed collectors will have noticed that the Study Series name and design is an homage to the series of BBC schools albums of the 1970s.

Moving Through Old Daylight

As part of John Foxx's Analogue event at the Roundhouse in Camden,  Ghost Box have been invited to take part in discussion panel, along with author Iain Sinclair and John Foxx himself.

The discussion will be chaired by Mark (k-Punk) Fisher and illustrated with film and sets out to explore the overlap between the panel members' work. How are places saturated with the traces of past events? How do technologies affect memory, and what role does fiction play in allowing us to map the haunted spaces of the city? The event entitled "Moving Through Old Daylight", will be held at the Roundhouse's Studio Theatre, 5th June 4:30 pm.

John Foxx and Benge at work in Play Studios

Julian and I were thrilled to be invited along to Benge's Play Studios to hear some tracks from the forthcoming album that the duo will be releasing under the name of John Foxx and the Maths late summer / autumn 2010.  The tracks we were privileged to hear were incredible, Benge's synth museum providing an authentic and rich back bone to lyrics elegantly poised between the Romantic and the Ballardian.

Admittedly as a long time fan , I'm a little star struck and possibly prone to hyperbole, but this is my most eagerly awaited album release of the year. From what we heard this record will encapsulate the stark, newness of Metamatic, the soaring Romance of Foxx's epic 80s albums, the lush choral cloudscapes of Catherdral Oceans and Mirroball and the laser guided synth pop of Shifitng City. Whats more its sounds thoroughly contemporary and I think will be adored by the current generation of artists influenced, unconsciously or not, by Mr. Foxx's oeuvre.

Here's a sneak preview of an uncut promo...

The main event at the Roundhouse on 5th June of course is the live show, which will be performed on a an impressive array of analogue gear. As well as Benge, John Foxx will be joined on stage by former Ultravox guitarist, Robin Simon.

And finally its anoraks on for the live kit list...

Synthesizers and Sequencers:

ARP Odyssey x 2

ARP Sequencers x 2

Crumar Multiman

EDP Wasp

Korg MonoPoly
Korg 700

Logan String Machine

Moog Mini x 2
Moog Modular plus Sequencers
Moog Opus 3
Roland Modular System 100m x 10 Modules
Roland SH2
Roland SH-101
Roland Juno 60
Sequential Circuits Multitrack

Drum Machines:
Amdek Percussion Synthesizer
Boss Dr Rhythm
Linn Drum
Klone Drum

Roland CR78

Roland TR808

Effects and  Processors:

Boss Chorus

Boss Flanger
Boss Phaser

Electro Harmonix Electric Mistress Flanger

Furman Spring Reverb
Ibanez AD80 Analog Delay

Maestro PS-1 Phase Shifter

Mu-tron Phasor
MXR Phase 100

Roland Space Echo RE-201

Other Equipment:

Tascam & Revox Analogue Reel to Reel Tape Machines

Resonance FM Fundraiser this Weekend

This weekend , 1st & 2nd May please lend your support to the Resonance FM fundraiser. You can do this by bidding for all kinds of exciting art, music and objets in the weekend long auction or just by listening and spreading the word.

Two marathon sessions will be anchored by Jonny Trunk on Saturday and Bob & Roberta Smith on Sunday. You can listen in London on 104.4 FM or anywhere in the world on the website or, easiset of all, on the little gizmo at the right hand side of this blog.

Here's what Mr. Trunk has to say about it...

"This coming Saturday I am broadcasting for 12 hours on Resonance FM. The station is 8 years old and is having a 12 am to 12 pm super fundraiser on both Saturday and Sunday with all money raised going to keep the station up and running. The station is a charity by the way.

 We have a whole heap of fabulous and strange things up for auction - rare records, weird days out, superb clothing, one off art, paintings, posters, instruments, studio equipment, scooter wear, even some superb and desirable wine has been donated. My current fave is the bespoke racing overall (like Steve McQueen wears in Le Mans, or Elvis in Speedway or like that bloke wears in the impossible dream Honda advert), which will be made in a colour and size of your choice.

 Donations to the auction have come from some superb sources: Stewart Lee, Christian Marclay, YMC, Rapha, Sounds Of The Universe, Pete Fowler, Ghost Box, Julian House, The BFI, Henry Cow, Throbbing Gristle, Bob And Roberta Smith, The Chapman's, The Winery, Fuel etc, and I'm even putting up some rare vinyl I was saving for a rainy day, like a Tubby Hayes Voodoo test pressing and stuff like that. I've had a look at some of the bits and bobs up for grabs, and I really like the Pete Fowler painting he's done just for the auction, of a bear playing a synth in the woods with all these UFOS coming in.

 Anyway, the show will be broadcast live on Sat 1st May from 12am to 12pm, we will be taking bids on line and on air too. The show can be heard on 104.4 FM (not digital) if you are in London, or can be streamed live on www.resonancefm.com. And the station takes paypal, so paying for anything you win is almost painless."

Interview with The Advisory Circle

There's a great interview with Jon Brooks of the Advisory at the rather excellent webzine The Quietus.

http://thequietus.com/articles/04153-the-advisory-circle-mind-how-you-go-ghost-box

Much food for thought, though we would like to point out that Jon's opinion's on footwear are at odds with official Ghost Box policy.

The Séance at Hobs Lane is back.

The Ghost Box shop has just re-stocked a limited quantity of the darkly majestic album Séance at Hobs Lane by Mount Vernon Art's Lab. Click here to order it right now.

Ghost Box Interview

During the last Belbury Youth Club Ghost Box and Moon Wiring Club were interviewed for Birmingham based internet radio channel Phantom Circuit. These can be heard as part of two special shows available here.

See Winter Sun Wavelengths at The Wire Salon

There'll be another chance to see Winter Sun Wavelengths with the new soundtrack by Belbury Poly and The Focus Group and another performance by Moon Wiring Club this Thursday in London's fashionable Shoreditch. Its an event hosted by Wire magazine, here's what they say...

The first in a monthly series of salon-type evenings hosted by The Wire at East London’s Cafe Oto venue. For this opening event, Mark Fisher (K-Punk) heads a panel debating the uncanny quality of so much contemporary audio, from spectral disco to dubstep, Hypnagogic pop and beyond. The night will also include screenings of films by Julian House (Ghost Box, The Focus Group) plus DJ Mordant Music. London Cafe Oto, 1 April, 8pm, £4.

http://www.cafeoto.co.uk/thewiresalonapril.shtm
http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/3810/

Exemplary Youths

Thank you very much indeed  from all at Ghost Box, to everyone who came along to Sunday's Belbury Youth Club in Birmingham, especially for those who travelled so far to join in. Nice to have met so many of you.

We'd also like to thank Moon Wiring Club for the beautifully entertaining and entrancing set, (we hope that the journey back through the portal to Clinkskell went smoothly, but we could only hold it open briefly).

We'll have News of the next Youth Club Night soon.

Programme of Activities

for the Belbury Youth Club Night this Sunday.