CAFE KAPUT'S SCIENCE AND NATURE

There's a new release this week on Jon Brook's Cafe Kaput label. Its an anonymous release (stage whisper: "It's Jon !") with the utilitarian, library-esque title, Vol 1. Science and Nature.

Free of the confines of The Advisory Circle, Jon's gone to town on his ever expanding modular synth and put together this compilation of beautiful cues. The references to Chappell and Studio G classics are spot on and the sound sculpting and melodies are an absolute joy. I suspect JB had a lot of fun putting this one together  and needless to say its as beautifully produced as ever. (Artwork by Moon Wiring Club's Ian Hodgson by the way). Get it here or here...



Another digital release this week is by Belbury parishioner, and occasional Belbury Poly drummer, Jim Musgrave aka Land Equivalents . Its an EP entitled Good Morning. Fantastic drumming as always from Mr. Musgrave and his keyboard chops are pretty nifty too, with soaring fuzz pedal synth melodies that make it a free 'n easy, uplifting experience. That one's available here...


 

If you're trying to grab the free download that came with The  Elektrik Karousel LP you may have noticed the URL on the card is incorrect. It should be...

 www.procards.com/download

Our apologies for any confusion or frustration this may have caused.
 

GET ON BOARD THE ELEKTRIK KAROUSEL TODAY !

In the Ghost Box shop (and many other good stores real and digital) today.

On luxuriously packaged and illustrated 8 panel digi pack CD
OR super heavyweight vinyl LP (includes free download code card with access to full album and bonus CD tracks)
OR simple, old fashioned, ever lovin', download.

 LP download card.
UPDATE: Please note download URL on this card should read
www.procards.com/download
Apologies for any confusion caused by misprint.


 



BUILDING A HUMAN

PRE-ORDER THE ELEKTRIK KAROUSEL

The new album from The Focus Group, The Elektrik Karousel is due for release on 10th May, but you can pre-order it right now in the Ghost Box Shop.

This is the first Ghost Box release to feature  redesigned CD packaging and this first edition comes in a highly desirable 8 panel digi pack designed by Julian House. The LP version comes on super heavyweight vinyl and includes a free download code card inside. The design is inspired by 1960s underground press and is conceived as a kind of mind altering DIY board game. On the release date download only customers to the Greedbag shop will be able to get high quality flac audio files. Listen to clips here.

THE GHOST HUNTER



Old Red Lion Theatre, Islington

Dick runs a ghost tour, and he’s got a great story to tell. It’s the one they all go home talking about. The headliner. It’s about a Ragged School in old York. About something terrible buried beneath the cobbles. It’s about the past. It’s about ghosts. And it’s about to catch up with him.

A new play by Stewart Pringle, writer of As Ye Sow.

Director - Jeffrey Mayhew
Producer - George Warren
Starring - Tom Richards

Tuesday 30th April to Saturday 25th May, 2013
Box Office: 020 7837 7816

SHINDIG IS HERE TO HAUNT YOU

For a while now Shindig magazine has been a big seller in the Belbury Newsagents, so excitement here is rather high as this month editor, Jon "Mojo" Mills has the vision and generosity to open the broad doors of  his psychedelic church to Broadcast, Ghost Box and a wealth of influences that feed into their worlds.

Thomas Patterson interviews James Cargill for an astounding and sensitive feature on Broadcast, illustrated by Julian House.  Occasional Belbury Poly plank spanker, Christopher Budd talks to Messrs Jupp and House for a profile of Ghost Box Records. There's a a history of The Children's Film foundation and a fantastic primer on the world of the Italian giallo film illustrated with another great piece of House artwork. As if that weren't enough  there's a profile of the ISB's Mike Heron, Mark Brend on White Noise and a piece on new ager's Emerald Web in the run up to a Finders Keepers compilation.

 

Its hard to imagine any other publication that will be of more interest to members of this Parish right now, so get yours here or at these stockists.

SHAPWICK ON VINYL

Last year Jon Brooks of The Advisory Circle took a break from his native Ghost Box  to record an album called Shapwick for Clay Pipe Records. Clay Pipe is a marvellously inventive boutique label run by Frances Castle, who specialises in beautifully hand made limited edition CDs.

 

Shapwick sold out of its first run of 110 overnight, so if you missed out the first time round, now is your chance to get it again, not the handmade CD unfortunately but this time its on Vinyl (with a free download code inside) and its in the Ghost Box shop right now. Once again though its only a limited edition.

Shapwick was inspired by a night drive through the countryside of England's West Country and is in similar territory to the Advisory Circle's melodic and melancholy, rustic electronics but taking in more elements of acoustic instrumentation and found sound. A perfectly self contained mood piece and as elegantly produced as any Brooks project.

 

 

UPDATE: This sold out in a matter of days again ! Clay Pipe tell us there may be another edition at some point - we'll let you know. 

THE ELEKTRIK KAROUSEL

The long awaited fourth album from the Focus Group is due out on 10th May on Vinyl, CD and Download.

GHOSTWRITER

 

Coming soon to Chaffinch Records  is a new 7" and download EP by Ghostwriter. This was the ambitious project of Mark Brend and an ensemble of invited musicians who co-wrote and preformed in various sessions kicked off back in 2010.  Here's what Chaffinch say about it...

 

The title track finds Brend joined by Belbury Poly/Ghost Box’s Jim Jupp for an imagined walk through 1930s London alongside Christian mystic writer Charles Williams. This 11 minute rumination is bookended with two short pieces, Autobiographical Sketch no. 1, and With Stringed Instruments, A Song, featuring Brend’s former Fariña bandmates Matt Gale and Tim Conway. A fourth download-only track, Bidding Bell, finds Brend drawing regular Ghostwriter collaborator Suzy Mangion and new recruit Adrian Ramsey into a pastoral/choral conversation with God.

 

Official release date is 4th March but defying all laws of time and space as they so often do, Norman Records have some of these lovely 7"s in stock right now

The Parish Council is indebted to Mark for introducing us to the world of Christian mystic and forgotten member of the Inklings, Charles Williams. If the notion of Christian mysticism is off putting to you we recommend  you start with The War in Heaven in which a dotty, academic, village curate recovers the grail and defeats the machinations of an evil diabolist thereby saving the world. Or Many Dimensions in which an antiquarian acquires the Stone of Solomon which can enable the owner to transcend space and time.

 

 

At one level these are occult mystery novels but there's far more here to think about than that might imply. Dennis Wheatley this is not.
(NB you might want to avoid Shadows of Ecstasy, its far from his best and it contains some rather unpalatable and outmoded notions about race.)

We are also very grateful to Mark for sending  a copy of his new book  The Sound of Tomorrow which tells the story of electronic music from the point of view of its mass media proponents rather than from that of the "serious" or academic composers.

 

 

Bloomsbury say this....

London, 1966: Paul McCartney met a group of three electronic musicians called Unit Delta Plus. McCartney was there because he had become fascinated by electronic music, and wanted to know how it was made. He was one of the first rock musicians to grasp its potential, but even he was notably late to the party. For years, composers and technicians had been making electronic music for film and TV. Hitchcock had commissioned a theremin soundtrack for Spellbound (1945); The Forbidden Planet (1956) featured an entirely electronic score; Delia Derbyshire had created the Dr Who theme in 1963; and by the early 1960s, all you had to do was watch commercial TV for a few hours to hear the weird and wonderful sounds of the new world. The Sound of Tomorrow tells the compelling story of the sonic adventurers who first introduced electronic music to the masses. A network of composers, producers, technicians and inventors, they took emerging technology and with it made sound and music that was bracingly new.

Jon Brooks' Winter Mix for 2013

The Twilight Language of Nigel Kneale

Last November in New York, author and journalist, Sukhdev Sandhu curated an event on science fiction screen-writer and author of Quatermass, Nigel Kneale. The Twilight Language of Nigel Kneale is a limited edition book to commemorate the event.

 

Its beautifully designed by Rob Carmichael and the first batch come with a music compilation on cassette titled, Restligeists.

The book and cassette feature some of our own parishioners many names that will be familiar to regular readers of the Parish Magazine...

 

contributions by a wide range of musicians, artists, curators and cultural theorists including Sophia Al-Maria, Bilge Ebiri, Mark Fisher, Will Fowler, Ken Hollings, Paolo Javier, Roger Luckhurst, China Mieville, Drew Mulholland, David Pike, Mark Pilkington, Joanna Ruocco, Dave Tompkins, Michael Vazquez, and Evan Calder Williams. Initial copies will come with RESTLIGEISTS, a tape of specially-recorded Knealiana by The Asterism & Xylitol, Emma Hammond & Robin The Fog, Hong Kong In The 60s, Listening Center, Mordant Music, and The Real Tuesday Weld.

 

 

It really is a beautiful and fascinating piece of work  and its available in the UK from our friends at Strange Attractor. For sales in the rest of the world please write to ss162@nyu.edu

Jim Noir: One Man and His Blur

Berberian Sound Studio Soundtrack out now

Broadcast's beautiful soundtrack to Berberian Sound Studio is out now, in all good records shops. Gorgeous  artwork by House throughout and the vinyl version comes with a download voucher (printed on a nice little Berberian Sound Studio business card).

It is absolutley essential that all members of this parish purchase a copy at the first opportunity.

Support Nic's Fight

I'd urge all parishioners to give a moment of their time and sign this petition to lend support to the family of Nic Hughes after their shameful treatment by Friends Life Insurance
http://www.change.org/petitions/friends-life-friendslifetalk-pay-out-nic-hughes-critical-illness-policy-nicsfight
#NicsFight

Jan W. Gruber

 

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.

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.



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.