Chinstrap is delighted to present a new collaboration between Oblivian Substanshall & Anthony Donovan (of Classwar Karaoke and more delights). Music for an industrial-ukulele-blue-cheese-dream, we shall let the gents themselves explain further....
"A mawkish them and us... by turns, or in some way by series, as an inviolate inheritance. our name is barely a republic in its own right, and we are forms of cod hermeneutic, soaking wet, in some hintertland, waiting for email. we are watching our confessions and we cannot get enough. doll hand rings bony bell, or else mall wooden pick with cat head on door. we ird and we can andle tha fink accessory. (one missing bookend, you pickle.) and thee electronic alarm fffffffffffffffffffffffzzzzzzzzz craze out thee batterie BANG BANG BAN GG ... one pair is ever wooden & u don even kno we can list just once before we die, so we are not going to waste it." (Anthony & Substanshall, May 2012)
Dwoogie is a gentleman of the highest order. Described by Pete Um as the "ever tumescent honorary Pole", I was fortunate to spend a decadent few days supping Vodka Zolodzkowa Gorzka in Warsaw, discussing, amongst a myriad other delights, the insertion of chairlegs into the desiring bum-bums of aged avant-gardists, and Alvin Lucier going to the supermarket in a thong.
Not so long ago, possibly during my sojourn in Warsaw, he mentioned to me his project-in-progress working with the voices of lovely lady friends via Twitter.
This is that project, and that is this project. "Texticals Allowed Vol 1" is an hallucinogenic love letter to the female voice, filtered through layers of memory, explosions of terror, half-awake dreams, and half asleep waking. Like a message at the end of the universe sent from a space station in an erotic abyss.
Listen to it.
We'll let Sir Dwoogie of the Never Fading Banana explain further....
The idea: About a year ago, I had the idea of using women's voices in a project. They were to be speaking voices, reading whatever they wanted to read, as long as it wasn't poetry. Poetry and music have been done. To death, some might say. I thought I would do some cutups and some weird music. So, I asked a few Twitter friends who happen to be women if they were interested. Some were, and sent me recordings.
The execution: For a long time, nothing happened, but I did finally start working with what I was sent. These are the first complete results. I was, and am, impressed by how beautiful the voices are, and my initial concept changed as a result. I decided to keep the recordings whole and present the voices more or less as they came to me. Mostly more. I hope the voice artists aren't disappointed with what I've done. There are more to come!
Thanks: At this moment, I'd very much like to thank @Pani_Bufetowa, @The3rdGirl, and @TheLastHatGirl for making these tracks possible. I will, of course, give the other contributors their dues when I've, ahem, finished with them. And I'd also like to thank my GREAT friend @ergophizmiz for releasing my dabblings.
Sound-collage maestro James Melendrez aka The Superfools spent months researching and sourcing the sound sources of The Orb's sample works, then proceeded, using these original sources, to reconstruct the music of The Orb in his own image. This is the result.
In the words of Mr Melendrez...
This album has very little Orb samples. It was put together from the samples they used to make "Adventures Beyond the Ultra World". I wanted to use what they used and it took me time to get all the original samples - I had to research the hell out of it online. The little fluffy sample is from an album box set from Ricki Lee Jones but only a promo box set and only about 200 were ever made. It came out in the 80s. I got it on eBay. The Hippy and the Redneck was a little album I bought on Amazon. Also I sampled DVDs all over the place, "West World", Woody Allen's "Sleeper", "Flash Gordon", "Once Upon a Time in the West". Dub was King Tubby and Scientist. A little "Snow White" and "Alice in Wonderland". Also songs from Grace Jones, Dee Lite, and Monty Python. Smashed with sound effects. And there you have it.
And just because we couldn't resist, here's a picture of The Superfools with the great John Waters.
Hoist your typewriter and raise the rallying cry of
Carriage, Return!
Pitman's Gramophone Course of Typewriter Keyboard Instruction has returned for a second volume of minimalist, motorik takes on all your favourite light classical moments!
Brush up on your secretarial skills and bathe yourself in a sea of stern repetition, from 78s at varying levels of decay. Some are clean as a whistle, others sound like crumbling rock-faces. All will make you wish you own a typewriter. If you already own a typewriter, it'll make you wish you had another one, just for the sake of it. You could start a club. This is the power of Pitmans.
Download the first volume of Pitman's Gramophone Course here.
More about the Magus of Secretarial Skills, Sir Isaac Pitman, right here.
With thanks to the ever splendid Bryan the Intrepid Vinyl Explorer for his vast collection of found and reloved shellac.
We are delighted to present a new release from prolific musical adventurer Elvis Herod, one half of the mighty Plushgoolash.
Back in the heady days of 2011, his first Chinstrap solo release, the Ergo Phizmiz produced "Keep It Regal", invented a new genre of hip-hop, called (c)hip-(s)hop, aswell as featuring the lyrics "Stop a second I just done a egg".
This was followed by "Arab Justice", a retrospective of sorts that ran the gamut of musical horrid, a genre of which Herod is an innovator and sex-master, and "Orson Welles' Dinner", a solo piano and electronics opus for culinary enthusiasts.
This new release is an imaginary workshop of an underwater scientist, dreaming aquatic perversions, reveries, and inventions. And very beautiful it is, too.
So put on your snorkel and flippers, and let the King of everything and nothing, Elvis Herod, drown you in naughty science.
We're delighted to present two new albums by James Melendrez, aka The Superfools, New Mexico's sound-collage virtuoso. Featuring collaborations with Otis Fodder (of The Bran Flakes), and Forty-One, these two albums are vividly chaotic splash paintings, musically intense and superbly constructed fiestas of montage.
This is romantic, mysterious, magical, and deeply personal sample music, ranging from multi-tiered fantasias of nostalgia, to frantic, angular, fragmented playgrounds where naughty children snip each other to bits and juggle with the remains.
Put these albums on, have a party with your best friends. You'd be a fool not to....
Now for a few words from Mr Superfools Melendrez (pictured above with two other lovely gentlemen) himself...
"Once I understood that I could make music I never stopped. Hanging out at friends houses and using their equipment I started to make short quick tracks. Slowly I started buying equipment like a turntable, a computer and so on. They are my tools.
The Superfools started to become my playground. I enjoy playing with samples and sound. In the summer of 1999 I sampled sounds from the song “We Built This City” by Jefferson Starship. The Superfools came from the lyric “we are the superfools!” I started to compose tracks at home. In earlier years I have shared them with friends and I received good feed back. I had fans. Till today I am eager to hear what my closest friends like about my work, and I am constantly evolving.
In 2009 a coworker posted albums online and I have had the opportunity to collaborate with other composers and artists via email. Ergo Phizmiz is one.
My subject matter is constantly changing because my interests are forever changing. When I compose as the Superfools it allows me to work with all the things I’m interested in at that moment. So it’s ok if you hear the broken English of Ricky Ricardo, or the maniacal demands of Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford in Mommy Dearest, and the percussive sounds of Perez Prado all on the same track.
This double release comes courtesy of Ergo Phizmiz’s Chinstrap net label. These two albums are a mystical journey into the world of vintage records. More than 100 tracks make up the majority of samples which are used throughout the two albums. Nothing was left out, Mambo, Bossa Nova, Cha Cha Cha, Samba, the Waltz, Tango and the Polka!
What sets these two albums apart from my other work is that they contain remixes from Otis Fodder of the Brand Flakes and D.J. Fortyone. I’m From Albuquerque, New Mexico. My love for Mexican/ Latin sound is my inspiration, and I’m proud to be one of the few Latin Sample collage artist this side of the border.
This Latin Electronico musical gumbo is sure to fulfill your avant-garde sample collage needs. Enjoy!"
What can I say about this recording? Cut direct to cassette tape, at the end of our tour of my opera The Third Policeman, immediately prior to Oblivian and I being very naughty boys indeed (courtesy of the good man Monkton Wylde) and staying up all night, it presents the vast majority of Oblivian Substanshall's triumphant and devilishly exciting performance at Howtosaytwo - an event I curated (or rather slapped together amid the million other things that were happening at the time) with Martha Moopette.
Aswell as being probably the best entertainment happening on the planet that night - it featured, as well as the last ever performance of The Third Policeman, live sets from Pete Um, Angela Valid, Elvis Herod, Vulnavia Vanity, The Gale, Martha Moopette as a Christmas Tree-cum-Satanic-Ritual, and of course Oblivian, plus Jonny Anyway's mime, a gingerbread house, a forest of children's art, and an audience of about 10 people - it was also the night where Oblivian pulled out this random fucker of a live show. Usually he will sit with his guitar, weave his little tales, and gently serenade us with his masterful, nonsensical pop songs. On this night, after months of hard slog on a tour of variable rewards, far too many intoxicants, and some high emotions and tempers (particularly from me), Oblivian decided to use, for the first time, some playback in his show. He described the performance-to-be as his "crooner set".
After initial technical problems and me sweating for the umpteenth time that night as a miniature audience waited to see what the cuddly, bespectacled, gentleman in front of them was going to deliver and I fumbled about hopelessly, finally the playback and microphone worked at the same time, and I ran into the other room to check that all was running smoothly (it wasn't).
When after a few minutes I returned to the small room where Captain Substanshall was stationed, I walked into a tiny audience enraptured at Oblivian, who had become the rotund rock frontman to end all rotund front rockmen (the guy from Pere Ubu would quake in his boots and probably spontaneously combust, or at least pull out his own willy and chop it off). Wearing a curly wig over his bald pate and darting between my Ivor Cutler foldy-harmonium, an electric guitar perched on a chair (an audience member said to me "Open string guitar solo! Never seen that before."), and, of course, the microphone, Obliv performed two numbers - "At the Same Time Maybe", and "On and On". Each was an explosion of jaggedy, peculiar beats, heavy bass, and Oblivian variously chanting the repetitive phrases and improvising on whatever was to hand. It was a singularly brave and brilliant performance and the small audience knew that every fucker who'd gone to whatever the fuck else was happening in town that night had missed something very special indeed.
So here it is, recorded direct to the internal microphone of a Coomber 393 cassette recorder, the great Oblivian Substanshall live in Bridport. If I had lots of money (or even just a spare few hundred quid), I would cut this recording to a 10" record straight away. But sadly I don't, and neither does Obliv. That's the price of not playing the idiot game.
I've lost faith completely in the "music should be free" thing. Kenneth Goldsmith's Wire article about "collecting mp3s you've always wanted and not listening to them just so you can say you have them for your sense of self satisfaction" was the final nail in the coffin for me. It does, it seems, cause a devaluing of music and sound-art, but at the moment there is no way else to be heard, so I don't see an alternative. When I'm very rich (and you'd better fucking bet your life I will be, soon enough) then I will release gems like this on beautiful vinyl in beautiful packaging, for as low cost as I can manage to sell them, but for now you'll have to make do with these 320kbps of utter joy.
I haven't known Obliv long, he's become very quickly my close friend and ally, and he ought to be yours too. Download this, then download all his other work on Chinstrap. And why on earth aren't you listening to his weekly show on one of the best, most unpredictable, vital and alive radio stations in the world, Soundart Radio? Go on! Get thee to the radio and FEED THYSELF!
The cover art of this release features Oblivian (centre), Elvis Herod (gurning on the left), and me for some reason touching my cheek (on the right). The image is superimposed with Martha Moopette dressed as a Christmas Tree (hence the pretty lights).
