Sunday, November 22, 2009

Striped Paint for the Last Post

The new album from Moon Wiring Club, Striped Paint for the Last Post is finally here. Like the previous two Moon Wiring Club albums its a window onto a world created by artist and musician, Ian Hodgson. Its a glamorous, yet parochial world of  Edwardian parlour hip hop, saucy occult rituals, supernatural sleuths and boiled sweets. At the heart of Hodgson's world is the town of Clinkskell, a kind of Royston Vasey re-styled by Biba and Hammer. Its populated by a huge cast of characters: chimeric animal headed magicians, sinister svengalis and impeccably tailored electronic musicians.

These 22 tracks form a kind of psyched out narrative of a parallel world England where the south is obliterated by flooding and a new and surreal monarchy is established in the North. Fuzzy voices with clipped accents rescued from lost VHS tapes of  British TV drama pepper these mannered and spooky tunes, giving us just enough hints as to what might be happening.  This is helped along by a bonkers little CD booklet full of beautifully imagined advertisements, and magazine clippings. Like all Blank Workshop output this is designed and illustrated by Hodgson himself.

In Striped Paint  bright synth clarions and big echoey basses alternate with hazy recycled keyboard washes and TV sound FX. Its all buoyed along by jaunty and unashamedly strident trip-hop style beats, which drop (in and out) at all the right dramatic moments and propel events forward at an easy, ominous pace. Hodgson achieves a sound world that's comical and creepy in equal measure making Moon Wiring Club perhaps more worthy of the  "H" word than anyone else these days. Needless to say this is hugely popular with all the youngsters at the Belbury Youth Club.

Striped Paint for the Last Post is available from the Blank Workshop giftshop.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

The marvel of Ghost Box

Is it just me or is this...




No surely not.




Could these comic book covers designed by Rain Hughes for Marvel's Iron Man be an homage to our favourite record label ?

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Penguins - The Perfect Christmas Gift


WWF recently produced a TV ad for their penguin adoption scheme with specially commissioned music by Belbury Poly. They currently have a micorsite  for the scheme that hosts a version of the ad minus voiceover, here

Friday, November 13, 2009

Mind How You Go (Revised Edition)



Over at Ghost Box we're currently putting together Mind How You Go (The Revised Edition) by The Advisory Circle a new lp length version of the 2005 mini album. This will be available in February 2010, on vinyl and download only.

As well as all the original tracks it will include:

Mind How You Go Now, The Advisory Circle's mesmerising motorik reworking of the original title track.

The new Advisory Circle track, Seasons, a pastoral reverie in the vein of the original public info film inspired material.

Osprey's Odyssey a beautiful instrumental track inspired by the TAC tune Osprey, by special guests Seeland ( moonlighting from Lo Records)

And The Cuckoo Comes to Belbury a lumpen proggy cod-medieval reimagining of the Advisory Circle original by Belbury Poly.

For a limited time only you'll find some preview clips here.

Not there ? Then you're too late sorry, but check on the Ghost Box site soon.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Jozin z bazin



It seems that this has been a massive viral hit so I may be a little behind the times, but I've been obssessed  by this You Tube film since I saw it a few months ago on Robert Popper's website. Apparently the singer, Ivan Mládek is something of a national treasure to Czechoslovakians and the song instantly familiar to millions of mittel European folk of a certain age. I even came across a Facebook group dedicated to spreading Jozin z bazin to the entire world. Ivo Pesák's dancing is an absolute joy, I certainly hope you're all doing it at home.

A translation that I can in no way vouch for runs like this:

I'm driving Skoda 100 to camp here on Orava.
That's why I'm hurrying, taking a risk - going through Moravia.
The monster lives there comes out of the bog.
Who eats mainly Prague citizens, his name is Jožin.
Jožin from the bog creeps through swamp,
Jožin from the bog closes in on the village.
Jožin from the bog edges it's teeth,
Jožin from the bog bites, strangles.
To defend against Jožin from the bog, who could imagine-
Only works an crop-dusting airplane.
 I crossed through the village of Vizovice
The village mayor greeted me, and said to me over some slivovitz
The one who brings Jožin in dead or alive
I'm going to give him my daughter as a wife as well as half of a collective farm
I said: give me an airplane and powder, mayor,
I'll bring you Jožin, I see no trouble about that
The mayor helped me, in the morning I went up in the sky
The powder from the aircraft prettily fell on Jožin.
Jožin from the bog is already all white
Jožin from the bog is escaping from swamp
Jožin from the bog hit the stone
Jožin from the bog it is the end of him
I caught him, I'm keeping him
Money is money, I'll sell him to Zoo