April Drudion

April 2012ce

From atop the great radar dish at RAF Yatesbury, PSYCHEDELIC REVOLUTION coverstar Kat Killer – in her inimitable fashion – salutes Windmill Hill’s 6,000-year-old Neolithic enclosure at the coming of Spring.

Hey Drudion,

While explaining the vastness of prehistoric Avebury to my visiting 12-year-old American niece recently, I was compelled to give this fabulous megalithic centre context by explaining to her that its various elements – the stone circle, Silbury, East and West Kennett longbarrows – were built across vast spans of time, giving the site an enduring nature similar to modern Mecca. Yup, the Diana worship, the Christ worship, even this current dodgy patriarchal regime, all were inspired by that extraordinary decision of Abraham’s to bring to Mecca that great meteorite. Probably achieved sometime in the Bronze Age (1800 BC-ish?), Abraham’s stone has inevitably established at Mecca enough of a physical World Navel to remain indefinitely … that is, until razed, erased and obliterated by some future Mao or Cromwell. But think of the dark days of Mecca, of those Godless idol-wielding in-between times when its Kaaba was scrawled up with ‘Mithra Rules!’ graffiti and festooned with the wretched religious flotsam and unartistic jetsam of countless temporary Middle Eastern cults. The prophet Mohammed had a hard time getting Mecca set up and running as his Ult in temples precisely because locals long associated its precincts with all manner of previous worship. But eventually Mohammed succeeded through persistence and the sharpness of his sword.

Mecca’s ongoing compromise as Islam’s World Centre was brought to the attention of the West around a decade ago when one female Egyptian scholar suffered excommunication for comparing the processions around Mecca’s sacred enclosure to Standing Stone worship. This got me thinking. And this is what I thunk: Is Islam a real religion or is it just the world’s biggest cult? Is Islam just a modern parody of ancient Odinism, with a remote desert divinity Allah crassly substituted for the great Mother/Grandmother at the heart of the original Odin Truth? And if a modern Muslim scholar can accuse her religion of being ‘megalithic worship’, could there not be something ‘bigger’ in the ongoing compulsion by both the Heathen and Muslim populations to visit great stones? Hey, and what a thing to share in common! Anyway, in his brilliant autobiography SHIBBOLETH, Crass’ visionary helmsman and drummer Penny Rimbaud recounts the moment in 1975 when his (soon-to-be-murdered-by-the-police) Cult Leader friend Wally Hope declared:

“We are the new warrior class, the children of tomorrow … I have a dream that one day the children of Albion will play again together in the shadows of the great stones.”

Read those words children, read those words and tell me we ain’t A L R E A D Y there! Do not as the Prophet Mohammed did for Men Alone, but let us further re-OCCUPY these megalithic temples for everyone. Re-OCCUPY the ancient temples, brothers’n’sisters. Make new these ancient temples as renewal has always been achieved: by fucking in these temples, by screaming in these temples, and by making covenants in these divine temples: we must re-OCCUPY these temples and Take Back all of it for Ourselves, and do it always with that blazingly avant garde ultra-modern Edisonian rock’n’roll as your soundtrack. Let T. Dream’s ATEM thunder in longbarrows, motherfuckers! Let Gunslingers unleash their sonic fury in Breton chambers! Women, bring forth ten thousand new Cave Hollerers to our Western dance, and let those Men Only 50% Exclusive religions wither without their own soundtrack. Let not the headbanging of Koran chanting prevail, but let that headbanging ONLY be made against a permanent soundtrack of un-royally Fucked Up & Naked Rock’n’roll!!!

Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm (We Love You)!!!!!!

Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm (We Love You)!!!!!!

Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!

Right, now I’m gonna lay on y’all a Reviews Section that deals only with sounds Useful for achieving the aforementioned rock’n’roll revolution. Indeed, this month’s batch appear to share a certain Yawp that threads them together both psychically AND musically. Ain’t nothing but pure Thang in this next batch of reviews, so here gooze!

ETHNOLOGIES by the Hermetic Brotherhood of Lux-Or

First off comes those Sardu-sonic tricksters the Hermetic Brotherhood of Lux-Or, whose new double-CD bears the portentous and totally-deserved title ETHNOLOGIES VOL. II: MUSE DE L’HOMME HERMETIQUE. What a severe form of Kosmische Musik these gentlemen barf out, brothers’n’sisters. Fuck me, it’s a double-CD of utter vocaleptic brainstorms, eternal drumclatter, caveholler, lo-lo-fi Neu 2-style thrash, epic sub-Faust mung worship and seething half-hour-long Zoroastrian ambulence of the dark stasis variety. Released on the oft excellent Trasponsonic Records (www.trasponsonic.net), this superb beast should be in the home of any self-respecting Inner Space Cadet, for its very Sardonic presence on your shelf will promote harmony and humanity in your living space. Fucking yowzah!

Eponymous by Paul Kidney Experience with Mani Neumeier

Yeah man, more mad cunts slung your way this month with the return of Australia’s Paul Kidney and his highly volatile ensemble The Experience, herein propelled by the undoubted percussive genius of former Guru Guru leader Mani Neumeier. And what a combination this union proves to be. Taking the fairly prosaic title PAUL KIDNEY EXPERIENCE WITH MANI NEUMEIER, this enormous trek is achieved via several huge cosmic workouts that heave and gasp across the heavens as Mani effortlessly controls the tides of this undulating barrage. For those unaware of Paul Kidney, he’s a Downunder shouter who heads a large Cosmic Jokers-style ensemble – 12 of those fuckers – joining in himself only with impromptu bursts of squeaky dogtoys and Brian Blessed-as-Odin screams. But such screams. Imagine Yo Ha Wa meets John The Postman backed not by stoned chancers but by a cutting-it ensemble with analogue synthesizers, and yooz reaching the Kidney’s metaphor. Again, acquisition of this disc is essential for those demanding Totalitarian Cuntedness, and a trip to myspace.com/paulkidneyexperience should help you to make a righteous purchase. Heil ja!

I DISCOVER I'M MISSING by Hakobune

Okay, so now you need to come down with Hakobune’s I DISCOVER I’M MISSING, not much more than half-an-hour of compelling dream music that seeps into your psychic cisterns and irrigates the outermost reaches of thine unjudged and unloved spots. Phew, must be useful then. Undoubtedly, especially as I’ve rotated this sucker at least fifty times and by now it befits my chakras like some newly forged iron grating snuggling on to a Victorian manhole. Sweeeet. Perhaps it's the self-assured gentleness that intrigues me, the absence of any vaulted enormousness, just sheer pastoral tranquillity that never descends into New Age onanism. Released on the English Apollolaan Recordings (www.apollolaan.co.uk), I DISCOVER I’M MISSING is as verdant, interwoven and overgrown as the ancient woodlands of its cover.

DIASPORA by Sujo

To be verdant and fertile to the point of engulfing is the clear aim of the next disc for review, for Sujo’s impeccable DIASPORA vaults across the sonic heavens like Nadja bestriding a seven-peaked sonic Mt. Olympus. Led by Ryan Huber, that same gentleman who runs the equally nessa Olekranon, Sujo sets up a massive virtual world of aural skyscrapers and projected streetplans that teem with No One. Zilch-o. It’s fucking deserted as fuck, me-babbies, a kind of Numanoid Down In The Park played by Steve Reich in the Afternoon level of disengagement. Or maybe Striborg at a push. Over this entire alienating robotic backdrop is daubed some ‘human’ stuff, kind of like Battiato’s CLIC. Again, totally disengaged and alienating with sudden ardently emotional musical occasions that push listeners, even floor listeners with their spectacular beauty. Better still, this is a repeatable formula guaranteed to push listeners’ buttons at appropriate times. Overall then? Economical to the point of being distilled dystopian post-DOOM with occasionally absurdly vaulted pretentions somewhat at the scale of Carl Orff’s CARMINA BURANA. Can’t say fairer than that, now can thi’? Cop its earload by accessing Il Huber’s Inam Records ([email protected]), or drink freely from sujo.bandcamp.com, then buy the motherlode on disc for shit damn sure.

LUC FERRARI'S CYCLE DES SOUVENIRS by Rinus Van Alebeek

What to make of this next disc? I’ve no idea other than I play this sucker constantly. Imagine Lucifer NYC’s ‘Not I’ as performed or de-performed by Queen Elizabeth and you may get my drift. I’m talking about a bizarrely Gnostic ambient, nay, ambulant work by Dutchman Rinus Alebeek, entitled LUC FERRARI’S CYCLE DES SOUVENIRS. I say Gnostic because Mr Alebeek set up his recording equipment in the house of the aforemenched late Italian composer then proceeded to engage Ferrari’s wife Brunhild in the proceedings along with several ‘incidents’ and musical themes. Released as part of Bôlt Records’ Populista Series (www.boltrecords.pl), Rinus Alebeek’s album perhaps works so well because its off-the-cuff nature becomes enhanced and romantic purely on account of its foreignness. That I doubt, however, for LUC FERRARI’S CYCLE DES SOUVENIRS bears enough genuinely attractive musical themes and traditional elements to justify the extreme novelty of Alebeek’s highly demanding other elements. Forget the record’s even on? Yes, I often do. Then some musical epiphany will kick in about a mile from the musical horizon and off we trot once again. I well remember how the first digital issue of JA Caesar’s JASUMON epic was advertised with much brouhaha as featuring ‘25 minutes of extra shouting from Kan Mikami’. Perhaps this ambulant epic will one day warrant a deluxe edition with 25 minutes of extraneous noise. And at album’s end, listeners feel obliged to do their own noisy fidgeting, so embedded in your own life has this record become.

CHAUDELANDE VOLUME 2 by Gnod

Vinyl of the Month must serpently go to Manchester duo Gnod, whose powerdrive Drone-a-thon epic CHAUDELANDE VOLUME 2 is a splendid sacred sibling to their VOLUME 1 release of just a coupla months ago. Whoa there, kiddies, it’s like Gnod’s bombed out on a few Gregory Raimo pills, kicked into some churning NEU 2 mode, then made off on some fucked up Tractor with the plough still down. These two leave a furrow the size of a jet plane with a tailwheel, joyriders in boxing gloves with riffs the size of Eastern European technology. Fucking eh, it’s truly glorious to see my ladies bopping in cardiac concert five times in a row. 5 times in a fucking row, brothers’n’sisters, Gnod are so on one it’s a beautiful thing to witness. Released on the inappropriately named Tamed Records (www.tamedrecords.com), CHAUDELANDE VOLUME 2 is another item which should be considered an essential part of your sonic arsenal. That good, kiddies, that fucking good.

Finally, I think it’s fair to say that last month’s TUES’DAY NIGHT/WODNESDAY MORNING 3 was a roaring success for all involved, and I give especial thanks to our esteemed presenters Big Nige and Fido-X. To our esteemed host Ant-Honey De La O, I say Huge Thanks and a very cryptic ‘You Just Lived Up To Your Revolutionary Name’ nod. With luck, our next radio show shall be undertaken on the Danish island of Zealand with all of the Danskrock and Viking allusions that such a project must inevitably invite. To everyone enthralled by the World Fragrant possibilities of this In-Between year of 2012, I scream ‘Hail Motherfuckers… things to do.’

So until the next time,

Love, Peace & Fuck,

JULIAN (Lord Yatesbury)