PSYCHIC SPACE INVASION "Book of Dreams"
Elvis Coffee Records | CD-R
JEBUS "The Ants Are Eating My Head"
Elvis Coffee Records | CD-R
V/A "The Breath of Forgotten Places"
Elvis Coffee Records | CD-R
10:52am. Saturday morning, August 21st 2004 & I am all bleary-eyed. My gum at the top front of my jaw is still a little sore but my bloated belly seems slightly better from the ache it's been giving over the last two days. I thought I was fucking pregnant (it would have been a virgin birth). I check to see if there is any post. There is. Yet another packet addressed to "ELD RICH PALMER, GARY SIMMONS..." etc. That's the third ERP fronted communication I've had this year. What's going on?! I am not the ERP editor, I am not even in Poland. Why do "they" keep sending stuff to me? Do "they" know something that I don't? Just what sort of a delusion are these people under? If indeed they ARE people. Fuck knows what it says on that ERP website... (actually, it's not us, but London 's Aural Pressure who gave a note on their website once that you're ERP main editor, Gary - KS) I don't know as I don't access these things very often, if at all. No PC you see. No internet cafes either. I can't be fucked with it all, give me a roll of 35mm everytime! Christ's brothal breath, the last time I was in an internet place was MONTHS ago & that was only so that Paggie could book her Easyjet flight to Madrit. Fuck it! Fuck it all!!!
Well, the mysterious packet is here now, so I have to act. It is from, says the handwritten 'if lost' headed address on the back ("if lost"... hah! You'll be fuckin' lucky!! If lost it'll STAY lost, here in the UK, in the year 2004!)... it is from, I say, "Elvis Coffee Records". Homo erotic god's infected nipple piercings! I can't believe mankind is STILL using the "E" word, I mean you would have thought that it'd been pretty much done to death by now, wouldn't you? "Thought" did I say - I should have said "has"! It HAS been done to death, & a long drawn out slow one at that. But still some fuckers carry on using it. Why?!?! Yawn, yawn, yawn, moan, moan, moan, this is all too much too early for me, I still haven't brushed my teeth & my mouth tastes like a blocked-up toilet in the ladies bog, pee, poo & bad-blooded tampon infested. You should get a whiff of it... mars sample return mission? Never mind that, there's extraterrestrial organisms squirming in my mouth right now, evolving even as I (try to) speak.
Ok, packet opened... in special "isolation conditions". It's like unwrapping that Egyptian mummy I saw on TV last night. Er, well, not really. 3 CD-R's, 3 A4 "press releases" but no "Hello Gary", "Hello Kitty", or any kind of personal message what-so-ever. No "piss off", no "fuck off", no "drop dead ya fag"... in fact, no-thing... at all. What the hell do these folk think I am? 7 floors of open-plan review dedicated office space or something? I am a PERSON! A HUMAN BEING!!! I am, in fact, a MAN. A may-un.
Bla, bla, bla "formed in 2001 E****Coffee Records"... I keep wanting to say "Coffee HOUSE Records" for some reason. Like, probably because it sounds better. You know... S.O.U.N.D.? B.E.T.T.E.R? Yes? oh, & by the way, I HATE coffee too. What the fuck is wrong with tea?! Hmmm, I suppose E**** didn't drink tea or something. Too busy TCB' ing. Well, I DO drink tea. I like tea. I love tea. In fact, the reason I am so trite & grumpy is that it's now 11:29am & I still ain't 'ad a cup yet. Coffee? Tastes like burnt bearded lizards droppings marinated in elephant's piss to me. Amazing, is it now, how people will eat, drink, wear, listen to, watch, buy, drive, fuck & yes I've seen this only too many times... DANCE to, just about ANYTHING if the advertising's smart enough or the cultural leverage jemmies 'em up to it!!! IDIOTS!!! A global shoal of mindless fucking anchovies all swimming straight into the cunting tin can of their own accord!!! Fuckin' cunting fuckin' fuckin' fuckers!! And what else? Oh yeah "... a CD-R label" bla, bla, bla "... short run albums... 75 copies... private commissions in micro runs of anywhere between 10 & 20 copies..." You do WHAT?! And "we intend to keep the prices very low, £4 in the UK & $7 elsewhere". Well, that's good. Just like MY prices. So low they are, in all reality, non-existent. It actually costs ME to write every single nasty luscious Lolita-laden "review" I've ever penned. That's how much I'M in demand. Demand for my ASS!!
PSYCHIC SPACE INVASION - Book of Dreams
"UK 's premier experimental music station, Resonance 104.4 fm..." You know, I really must give this station a listen sometime coz I am soooo sick of Radio 3's "Mixing it' of late. Of early too "... has listed Book of Dreams as one of '10 things to dig before you die' on the Resonance fm Xanurtsian Nights website". The 10th "thing" being a hole, I suppose. Oh, ho, how predictably funny I am. Nice b/w coverpic of a dapple-pinned tree against the sky, printed in negative on thee reverse. This is all the work, music & images, of some Ian Holloway bloke who is now orange jumpsuit-clad & on his knees whilst masky & blade handed li'l 'ol me spells out the terms & conditions, al-qaeda chic. This had better be good baby...
Holy Mary's furry fustigated buttocks! I can't get the shrink-wrap off this CD!!! What a show up! Bang! Bang! Bang! There, I shot it off. Wow! The inside of the sleeve smells good, all sort of stinky & pleasant. Godzooks! There's even an inner sleeve like you have with a slab of vinyl!!! And the CD-R label is professionally printed, no cheap crap self-adhesive paper stickers here, mate.
This is an eerie journey into the chilly catacombs of Ian's mind. Mysterious, unearthly & retaining enough tension to dub this 'not quite so late night listening'... unless you WANT to go to bed a trifle scared! Tangerine Dream, Nurse With Wound, Origami Galaktika, to name but three, all have varying degrees of warmths within their desolation pieces because, even at their coldest, they still burn something akin to a gas boilers pilot light. Here, it's like being cast adrift between stars... fahrenheit er, total zero. Today in London the sun may be shining & this room may be bright but I feel cold. So here is something just a dinky bit fresh for our jaded 'civilisation' that has seen & heard everything (but has acted on NOTHING!)... Music to seduce a corpse to. And if you think I am being crass & cringeworthy, check out Lynne Stopkewich's astonishing 1996 film "Kissed"... "We carry the body, carry the body, carry the body..." - "I'm playing the CD, playing the CD, playing the CD..." - Paggie is "Punching the beary, punching the beary, punching the beary..." This is worth £4 of any self-respecting necrophile's inheritance money.
JEBUS - The Ants Are Eating My Head
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Irritating cover design. Do they really expect me to read all that text? Probably. Well, bolox to it, I say. States on the press blurb that Jebus had previously been working by him/her/itself but that this is a collaboration featuring members of Psychic Space Invasion (who we all rather like, don't we?), Green End Listening Station & Directive 2 (Sheesh, these names!). This is the first Jebus session, all fully improvised, created in 6 hours with guitars, pedals, samples, a theremin & other electronical gadgetry. Can't wait. Into my getting-on-in-years "big one" it goes and... yeah, all very calm & soothing & trance inducing & minimal drones & scrapes & shuffles & snuffles & chimes & sirens & buzzes & whirrs & whirls & peeps & pops... alas it doesn't work anywhere near as well as Book of Dreams. If you tried to get it on (bang a gong) with a cadaver to this, you'd only end up being laughed at in the face, and quite rightly so. It's too much in one go & I just get the feeling that our "collaborators" wanted to squeeze in as much smarty-pantyness as they possibly could for the session's duration. It uncharacteristically, unsatisfied. I'm not into 'sound effects' albums &, unfortunately, a lot of this CD tends to play just like one. Having said that, the last track does indeed start to patch things up immensly, so all is not lost. In fact, on the 2nd listen, this 3rd & final piece does start to sound rather superb... love the "trick" ending too!
THE BREATH OF FORGOTTEN PLACES - An Elvis (opps!) Coffee records Compilation
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"This is ECR's 7 artist sampler which is available free to all their new buyers." Course, being "in the business" (hah!) I didn't HAVE to buy EN-EE-FUCK-ING-THING! It's great being part of the music "underground"!! You should all pack in your pathetic jobs, get out your pens & scraps of paper & WRITE!!! You'd never have to pay for stuff again... food, shelter, underage sex, it's all fucking free! Just write. Write what you think, what you feel, what you know, what you're into. Sod the music, it's just a catalyst to be used to unveil the real YOU, ya sad-as-a-small-of-the-back-tattooed-teen-chicks-gonorrheic-sleep-honey-hallow! Punk queens?!?
Punk queens!! My ruby red & turned inside-out-swollen-coz-of-you dicky tube!! It's enough to make a musician pick up an instrument.
Here's my check list:
1. Jebus - Hole in the wall. B' jesus! Jebus goes all electro-guitar strummy & shimmery. Nice slow/not so slow evolutions & shifts of gear. Here. Everything ends up burning down, then gets resurrected into another form. Credible! Welcome to church. And so it goes on.
2. Directive 4 - Neijfk. Yi jfk. Why jfk? Space blobs this way cometh. 70's Doctor Who sound effect best in 70's Doctor Who episodes. Keep'em where they belong, I mean just look at the human zoo that is the UK in the year 2004... all the animals have been let out of their cages & are running riot! hey, watch out, there's an Auton behind you!
3. Green End Listening Station - DD2. Real acoustic guitar? Yee hah! Cold strings steer the cacophony away from dissonance. Splendid! Railtrack could learn a lot from this, not to mention London Underground's dicky-eyed tube bosses. I'm quite delirious by now.
4. Swn - Exponant 13132. Drone'n'buzz ignited kaleidoscopic soundscape that keeps the listener from falling neither one way or the other whilst sliding down the sonic banister. Nope, I am not doing drugs, just give me a beer! hammer Horror music to come to, too. Wonder what became of the other 13131 exponents then?
5. Ulysses Girelle - Sugarcoated. Nah... a sound effect track too far, it's out of any context and moves me not. Except onto the next piece.
6. The Buff Monkey Ensamble - Phoenix ninety six. Do they REALLY think these names are, erm, amusing? Buff monkey? Dreadful, dreadful names! But at least the sounds are good. Swishing & swaying funnels of electronica quietens down into reverberating guitar and... oh fuck, it's over as soon as it's begun.
7. Psychic Space Invasion - Drowning in heavy water. PSI, our favourite. Drone & hum, flickering speckles of colour, crackles, snaples, dapples & shackles. There's momentum & flow all orchestrated at the correct pace & speed which go to make the work of Ian Holloway less of an "experiment" & more of a RESULT! And I forgot to mention the great surrealistic sleeve montage on this compilation. I like it!
So, all in all, here are 3 excellent CD's put out by a label which of you are at all interested in this particular electronic/ambient genre, you really should investigate further. There's so much utter bollocks around by talentless prats who think that by pressing a few switches & making a noise they are transcending the boundaries of a music scene that has, without any shadow of a doubt, seen it all, here in this much referred to year of 2004. Elvis, it's been a pleasure. Aaaargh!
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Elvis Coffee Records, PO BOX 160, Swansea, SA1 6WB Wales, UK |
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e-mail: elviscoffee (AT) btinternet.com |
Gary Simmons
Gartina
Hermitage Walk
London E18 2BN
ENGLAND
Tel/fax ++44(0)20 8989 6599