Word The Cat

Here’s a new Word The Cat mix, recorded over the last week or so. This should be a regular thing - every month - from now on. You’ll be able to find mp3 and tracklisting either here or in the site’s media section.

Word The Cat November 2005 36.2 mb

Tracklisting:

MF Doom - I hear voices
Coalition of the Willing/Word The Cat - The auld triangle
Ramm:Ell:Zee - Hisstory
Edan & Mr Lif - Making planets
Les Trolls - Untitled
The Lappetites - My within
Hrvatski - Paint it black
Nic Endo - 2056/Rurouni Kenshin - Departure
Kid 606 - Phoenix riddim
Dj /Rupture w/Sister Nancy - Little more oil
Boxcutter - Brood
Digital Mystikz - Neverland
M. Bentley - Piano ship (alternative mix)

In continuation of these posts, here is some music from the seas north of the British Isles: firstly, Iceland. It’s a beautiful country on the crest of the North Atlantic Ridge. This position results in all sorts of steam, sulpher and lava being thrown up from below the earth’s crust and breaking out of the ground. The summer days are long as are the winter nights, with a couple of hours of dusk breaking the otherwise total darkness in the pits of December.
I’ve written before about the wilderness in the centre of the country and the outsourced US copper smelting plant and attached hydro electric dam being built to fuel it, whose construction is currently threatening a large area of that wilderness.
Music-wise Iceland is teeming, there is a strong local indie scene in Rekjavik, history re: Keflavik’s Bad Taste Records, an annual international music festival in Iceland Airwaves (which should be happening round about now) and international exports like Bjork and Sigur Ros (available in Iceland’s many tourist information kiosks).

MUGISON


Mugison hails from Ísafjörður: the biggest town in the north-western Westfjords (see pic above) region of the country. He grew up working as a sailor and packing fish in a factory (pretty much the only work going there) before moving to London where he began working on his debut Lonely Mountain LP. The album features Mugison’s vocals and guitar offset by a glitchy laptop. The two tracks below are perhaps the least guitar-y on the LP.

Mugison - One Day She’ll Park the Car 3.9mb

Mugison - I’m On Fire 4.7mb

Mugison now records and releases for Matthew Herbert’s Accidental records. Here’s his label profile.

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The Faero Islands lie to the north west of the Shetlands and south east of Iceland. Linguistically and culturally the faeros are not dissimilar to Iceland. Both were settled in the 9th century and old norse forms the backbone of both languages. The islands have been depicted on film by Ingmar Bergman (now resident there) in 1979’s Fårö-dokument.

Eivør Palsdottir

Eivør Palsdottir hails from the Faeros. She recorded her first, self-titled album (from which these tracks are taken) at the age of 17, before relocating to Rekjavik to study music. Since then she’s released 3 albums including this year’s Trøllabundin with the Danish Radio Big Band (samples available here). My taste in folk music is for paired down (preferably acapella) renditions which sound raw. In keeping with that these tracks keep the backing to a minimum. The second is performed by Hans Jacob a Brunni and features on Eivør’s debut LP despite the absence of either her or her band.

Eivør Palsdottir - Silvurkannan 5.7mb (m4a)

Hans Jacob a Brunni - Giv Fred Fremdeles 3.6mb (m4a)

There’s a great huge post now up at Radio Babylon with a load of MP3s from Helsinki based producer Vladislav Delay and AGF (Antye Greie-Fuchs) who is based in Germany.

AGF (3rd from left) is currently working on The Lappetites with Elaine Radigue (France), Kaffe Matthews (UK) and Ryoko Kuwajima (Japan). As might be suggested by the personnel involved, the meeting of languages is a big part of their new Before the Libretto LP (buyable thru QueckSilber Records) especially with tounge twisters on ‘Tzungentwist’ (below). AGF can be heard below on ‘Birken’ and free mp3s are available via her site here.

The Lappetites - Tzungentwist.mp3 2.0mb

The Lappetites - Birken.mp3 3.2mb

The Lappetites - Stop no. 394 Falkirk Street.mp3 4.2mb

———-

At UmeanCompetitor the saga of Michael McDonald and the Epcot Imagineers is drawing to a close. The story in a nutshell is that, in the face of gross provocation, Michael McDonald has developed Secret Google Cheat Codes to destroy the Epcot Imagineers. At the moment out heros have entered the Epcot centre itself and are battling the Dreamfinder who has tried to distract them by playing Beethoven’s 9th timestretched to 24 hours with no pitch distortions. The story is intercut with some unbelievable graphics and mp3s too. Here’s a link to the latest.

Gundam is huge – original giant robot serial. It’s bursting out of the fiction straightjacket at every seam. Japan sees art exhibitions and a national geographic style magazine showing gundams in their natural environment. And finally, un-toppably – in a move that will surely accelerate culture beyond repair, a japanese businessman is going into space as a gundam character:

Otaku Entrepreneur to Dress as Char Anzanable on $20-million flight.

Japanese Internet investor Daisuke Enomoto, set to become the world’s
fourth “space tourist”, plans to dress as Gundam character Char
Anzanable during his $20-million dollar flight. All the
self-professed Gundam-otaku requires is the aproval of the Russian
Space Agency, which operates the space-tours for Space Adventures Inc.

Space Adventures Inc. has so far sent three “Space Tourists” to the
International Space Station on Russian Soyuz space-craft for
US$20-million a piece. Enomoto, former board director of Livedoor, a
popular Japanese blog community (the 37th most popular website on the
Internet according to Alexa), is set to make his trip into space in
late 2006.
via Anime News Network

Here is a mp3 from the Gundam Wing series – pop music made for giant robots.

GundamWing - WhiteReflection.mp3

Continuing the music from Northern Europe posts, I’ve posted some tracks below from the Rune Grammofon camp. By and large this label deals with jazz/electronic music, perhaps most famously Wire favourites Supersilent. They also used to release Jaga Jazzist who are now signed to Coldcut’s Ninja Tune (ringtones are available).

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Per Henrik Svalastog releases as Svalastog through Rune Grammofon and Beatservice records who also release the excellent Biosphere. He has a new record out this year, but I know little else. Feel free to leave more info in comments if you know.

Svalastog - Fiel Remix.mp3 7.9mb

———-

Supersilent are the leading lights of Norwegian experimental/improv music. They have been playing together for 8 years and are now 4 albums and 1 DVD deep. There’s extensive biography and members discographies available here. This drone-heavy track is taken from the album 6. A gushing BBC review describes it as “like the anodised metal of a 1950s-envisaged spaceship. Like the slipstream of that craft as it forges through the atmosphere. The sound of new speeds attained.”

supersilent - 6.5.mp3 7.1mb

Avre Henriksen plays trumpet amongst other things in Supersilent. He has also appeared as a sidesman on the ECM label. I reckon here his horn sounds just like a guqin and another gushing BBC review talks a lot of japanese influence.

Avre Henriksen - Untitled.mp3 3.5mb

For more info: there’s a ‘my trip to Norway’ (”I ate this weird licorice”) piece at pitchfork. You can also find Norwegian online radio at Pilota.fm.

The skies are darkening, days are shortening and the winds are changing across the north of England. So, in anticipation of winter, Word the Cat will be posting some music from the north of Europe over the next week. First up is Finland.

Some people call it psych-folk and some call it free-folk. In Finland it’s delivered by a group of about 20 musicians who maintain a fluid membership through a load of different projects. There’s a fine primer on the scene available via Pitchfork here. One of the main folk is Jan Anderzén, who plays in Kemialliset Ystävät, Avarus, and the Anaksimandros. This Kemialliset Ystävät track is from 2004’s Alkuharka album. The Anaksimandros one is from the same year’s River of Finland (a hearty collection of cut’n'paste snippets from larger jam sessions recorded with a single microphone) on Eclipse records.

Kemialliset Ystävät - Etanapolku.mp3 2.1mb

Anaksimandros - Wolf Visitors-obc.mp3 5.8mb

The next is by Islaja and is taken from this year’s Palaa Aurinkoon album. “What’s down there? Fight the rotten faith so it’ll wither until it hardly exists, believe it! Islaja shows the way of rhythm, no it isn’t a straight one, the way of chant, it can’t be foreseen. Textures evolve into new ones. Scabby rhythms spin socks on feet, skin burns into ashes in the attacking heat. Senile wine glasses wail of happiness. Fallen off beard hair are woven into a scarf that lets the wind blow fast right through it.” writes Lau Naukkarinen.

islaja - uni pollona olemisesta.mp3 5.7mb

Finally, Kiila who are currently composed of seven members including Fonar records’ Sami Sänpäkkilä.

There’s a 40 minute live set of theirs recorded in All Saints Church, Cambridge available to stream here or download here.

Tampere-based Fonal Records who handle most of the above artists run a fantastic site where you can get mp3s, videos, bios and press info as well as buying some of their releases HERE. You can also find a special on this scene broadcast on NYC radio station WFMU available to stream here. Fonar offer radio shows featuring their artists (in Finnish) here.