Midnight Doctors - Through A Screen And Into A Hole

Jazz project conducted/masterminded by Phil Begg, who was also behind the very good ambient/drone project Hapsburg Braganza. This is the second effort of Midnight Doctors, after 2013's self-titled, which was graced with the presence of Mike Smith and Mike Vest of Bong, Dario-Lozano Thornton, and Posset, only the latter one appears on this. In contrast to that album's short vignettes of dark soundtrack jazz, this is a more focused attempt at creating long tracks. The music style is similar to Bohren & Der Club Of Gore's Sunset Mission and Black Earth, both in terms of the nightly foreboding atmosphere (minus the more horror-ish aspects of the latter album), and of the ambient feeling, which here is also accentuated by samples, electronics, and the droning of cellos, pianos, and other instruments. However, I wouldn't do this cd justice if I said that it's a rehashing of Bohren's masterpieces, as there is more at play here. Apart from the soundtrack aspects, there are also elements of deep spiritual jazz at its heaviest and finest,akin of Alice Coltrane's more experimental and improvised moments, reaching epic proportions on the penultimate track "Climactic Loss." Another point of reference could be The Embassadors more laid-back and spacious take on dark jazz. I also dig the slightly noise rock elements at play here, which remind of Reeks And The Wrecks (complete with a touch of New Orleans funeral jazz) and Oxbow's two latest jazz-tinged releases. A great album that has been on repeat for the last few days. 2015 cd on Ourodisc.

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Posset / Trancers II / Hapsburg Braganza ‎– A Clutch Of Eggs cdr

Posset's high-frequency tape hiss is juxtaposed against Trancers II's nice old-school-industrial-meets-hypnagogic (think of a mix between Throbbing Gristle and old James Ferraro and early Dirty Beaches) and Hapsburg Braganza's two very different tracks; first one is a dreamy floating ambient orchestral piece a-la William Basinski and Stars Of The Lid, while is a dictaphonic piece mixing various old talk shows and old jazz music. Nice shit. 2011 self-released cdr

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Various ‎– Fuckin' Fifty? (Fuckin' Amateurs compilation 6 X cdr)

The two recent posts about Xazzaz and TQ Zine were more or less related to Fuckin' Amateurs, so I thought to post this. In short, F#A was a ten-year-long project started by Martin Gregory and Jamie Stewart, documenting the life of the North-East English no-audience underground, mainly by bootlegging gigs of those artists and bands located or playing there, many of whom have received posts about here, or are going to get! That scene is really vibrant, diverse and creative and F#A did an amazing job keeping the light alive, until its folding of operations last year, which has fortunately been taken over by No-Audience Underground tapes. In this mammoth six-cdr compilation celebrating the fiftieth release of the label, a long series of artists ranging from drone, noise, punk, dictaphone and free jazz are compiled. Some are blog favorites, such as Jazzfinger, Posset, Waz Hoola, Culver, Wrest, Basilica, MC Blazin, Mechanical Children, Hapsburg Braganza, Lobster Priest, Charles Dexter Ward, as well as enigmatic car-race radio broadcast dictaphone worshipper Chris "Pause" Richardson. The highlight, though, is the last track of the last cdr, which is a band called The Nice People From Straightsville doing a cacophonous lo-fi castrato-voice cover of Hawkwind's "Silver Machine" renamed "I'm Going to Ashington." 2009 6-cdr set on Fuckin' Amateurs.

Disc 1
Disc 2
Disc 3
Disc 4
Disc 5
Disc 6

Various ‎– George Ferguson McKeating 2CDR

The first Bells Hill label release was a benefit compilation in the memory of the head of the label and musician (Mudguts, Black Leather Cop) Scott McKeating's father who died of Pancreatic Cancer, with the money intended to be donated to the Pancreatic Research Fund and included a small heartfelt note by Scott. The musicians who gathered to pay respect are the following, including giants of the English and American experimental/noise scene: the one and only Richard Youngs collaborating with Alex Neilson (ex-Ashtray Navigations), Astral Social Club, Culver, Mirag (Matthew Bower), Hapsburg Braganza, Vars of Litchi, Hasan Gaylani (of Jazzfinger), Jazzfinger themselves, Graveyards (with John Olson of Wolf Eyes), Greg Kelley again with Alex Neilson, Mechanical Children, Trauma, and Blood Stereo (Dylan Nyoukis and Karen Constance). So, by the names you know you should expect top drone, noise, experimental and psychedelic music. 2009 2XCDR on Bells Hill.

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