March Drudion 2012

March 2012ce

Hey Drudion,

I’m waking at a quarter to six mid-Feb and by sunrise there’s mad march hares kicking three shades out of each other under my bedroom window. Truly rural or what? It’s freezing cold at night, it’s boiling hot at night, it’s already early early spring and there’s a smell of World Revolution in the air, and bloodshed across the Middle East. Er, so what’s new? My Mohican for a start. Yup, that same horrible quasi-religious AUTOGEDDON one I foisted on Top Of The Pops back in ‘94. I’m keeping it under my hat for a while, but believe me it’s there for whenever I need to tell cunts to fuck off. Come on now, this is 2012. Talk about getting revolution foisted on you, 2012 reminds me of early ’77, when all we paleface Jubilee rentapunks – stoned on Bob Marley’s Marcus Garvey rumblings – dutifully shelled out on Culture’s masterly Joe Gibbs-produced reggae masterpiece TWO SEVENS CLASH because even jumping aboard some other fuckers’ revolution was better than nuthin’! Black people go back to Africa when the two 7s clash? We’ll have some of that. Sod Linton Kwesi Johnson, I’m Linton Kwesi Wabbit! So with 2012, my line of thinking is simply this: as we’ve all been gifted this huge date by some long lost pyramidiots, let’s just make trouble and blame the Mayans. Something’s in the air, officer. Brian Eno told me to do it.

NOT I by Lucifer N.Y.C.

Tell you what, though, the Reviews Section’s already well ablaze this month with the early arrival of Lucifer N.Y.C.’s 17-minute EP NOT I, the latest release from Head Heritage’s mid-price label Fuck Off & Di. And despite the success of the trio’s Black Sheep radio session for our TUE'SDAY NIGHT/WODNESDAY MORNING 2 show, I don’t think anyone could have anticipated the sumptuous weirdness of this debut release. Inspired by Samuel Beckett’s eponymous play, and divided into 4 separate parts, NOT I plays no central place at all in the real world, but instead flickers at the peripheries like some astonishing sonic Buñuel movie. And all the while the atonal chanteuse Lucy Brownhills mewls, coos, declaims and even lows her tale into listeners’ dumbfounded earholes. Released on Fuck Off & Di’s typical high kwoll CD-Rs, this is a future classic just waiting to happen, so make sure y’all score your own copy by pressing this here button.

CANAL SMARTS by 3 Leafs

Next up, everyone really should investigate 3 Leafs’ epic new vinyl LP CANAL SMARTS, whose two sides cannily showcase entirely opposing sides of this deft San Francisco ensemble. Useful? U-Betcha! Side one’s sidelong epic commences like AR & Machines’ massive double-LP ECHO, all massed swirling acoustic guitars, but gradually, almost imperceptibly building into a phenomenal autobahn power drive of mind manifesting proportions that just runs and runs, until – finally – bang, down down down comes the tempo, incomes a sticky budded, sick-a-delick mixdown and, suddenly, it’s like we got fucking Dieter Dierks at the controls of some lost Parson Sound sesh. Yowzah, says I. Over on side two, these Leafs unleash an unsignposted turbo-funk groove so bleeding useful that it was commandeered by my wife and daughters for heavy rotation during yoga and exercise workouts: two driving amphetamine soul sacrifices that are almost as unsignposted and as pugilistic as my own RITE NOW. Incessant, robust and organic, 3 Leafs’ newie is another real motherfucker for y’all.

DAWN DUSK by Äelter

Also, for maximum inner usefulness, I’d suggest you locate a copy of Äelter’s enormous work DAWN DUSK, a huge double-CD of post-Post Doom cuntedness. Starting out as a side project of Idaho’s Wolveserpent, and released on the excellent Crucial Blast Records (www.crucialblast.net), Äelter herein delivers a highly engaging, near commercial form of Dark Meditation, I mean of the kind that could be sold over pharmacy counters. Yup, that useful a Dynorodding. Slow growing finger-pick’d arpeggios take seed as the musical fundament of their trip, Äelter’s pedestrian almost riffs being such attractive slabs of darkened drabness that the world outside disappears, replaced by Äelter’s world. Aha, but these smart sods deploy their Dark with such unyielding gusto that with the simple application of an out of nowhere AOR vocal choir of near Harvey Milkean sumptuousness, we listeners are instantly capsized by the unlikeliness of such a judo move. Unlikely, but rather fucking effective, methinks.

THE NIGHT BIRDS PSALM by Stone Breath

Meanwhile, over at the Pennsylvania temple of Timothy Revelator, things have been difficult these past coupla years due to the man’s ill health. More sadly, I’ve felt obliged to pass up the opportunity to review the most recent batch of Stone Breath albums (and multiple related releases) purely due to the un-usefulness of their (admittedly pagan Yankee) Christian content to my intended audience on these heathen islands. Still, the Revelator’s such a tricky bard that he’s again managed to knobble me, this time by loading up his 12-track THE NIGHT BIRDS PSALM – released on his own Hand/Eye Records (www.darkhollerarts.com) – with catchy bastard songs of sinners, songs of killers, and songs of Springheel Jack-type underworld characters that no good Euro-X-tian would DARE to class as Inspired By The Lord. So, if yooz searching for compelling bare-arsed WHICKER MAN chants, Odinist tales of one-eyed sages, and banjo-driven odes to Devil children, then look no further than Brother Revelator and his righteous ensemble Stone Breath.

MUSIC FOR PSYCHEDELIC PEOPLE by The Rrreverberationsss

Okay, this next record described should really best suit those rock’n’roll fans who require the jammy fingers of the artist all over their releases. And boy do the Rrreverberationsss permeate the very essence of their debut self-produced album MUSIC FOR PSYCHEDELIC PEOPLE, even the Dark Side Of Jackson Pollock-style hand splattered record sleeve itself clinging to my counter top and leaving skid marks across my iBook. Nice. Even better, the music contained herein is half-an-hour of truly exhilarating space-rock somewhat in that rented ranch style achieved by Simply Saucer. But as the Rrreverberationsss have no real drummer, they achieve their fabulous epic quality not through their unique riffery, but because the absence of any real rhythm section means no fucker’s backing up the cliché. Sweet. And it’s that which always keeps these gentlemen so fascinating and so very far from being a Rock Band. Check them out at www.roeshad.com, it’s a singularly delightful sound.

SPOONFUL OF SEEDY DUDES by True Sons of Thunder

Now, Vinyl of the Month must surely go to Memphis quintet True Sons of Thunder, whose debut gasoline racket SPOONFUL OF SEEDY DUDES effortlessly conjures up Mung Worshipping memories of the Heartbreakers, High Rise and Monoshock. What a horrible onslaught. These gents start out fair enough but it soon descends into cunted obliteration of the kind that can only Refresh and Invigorate the mental health of all’n’every Westerner. Released on the excellently-named Jeth-Row Records (jethrowrecords.blogspot.com), I reckon we all best enjoy this True Sons of Thunder LP while they’ze still alive and kicking. From their choice of covers and other recorded evidence, these druids look and sound like the kind of Intuitive Non-Career Movers that may never again get around to recording a single song.

Finally, I just wanna remind you all to catch the third choice instalment of our Black Sheep radio show TUE'SDAY NIGHT/WODNESDAY MORNING on March 13th/14th. Another four hours of audacious audio will pummel your collective senses as me’n’Big Nige drink and debauch in the company of Holy McGrail, Acoustika, Anthrony De La O and other Black Sheep. And we’re dedicating the whole show to the MC5’s Michael Davis, who died of cancer a coupla weeks ago. What a mythical motherfucker. He leaves behind a beautiful wife Angela, a daughter and four sons, and a whole generation of young dudes who cast themselves in his Godlike image. A forward-thinking Motherfucker who had it hard after the ‘60s, let’s be thankful that this beautiful Druid saw international success with DKT even if it was too little too late.

To Michael Davis in the Cosmos,

All love from all of us,

JULIAN (Lord Yatesbury)