Here are some highlights of 2011 for us:

RECORDED MUSIC  (links to streams where possible)
Tim Hecker – Ravedeath 1972
Sun Araw – Ancient Romans
Skullflower – Fucked On A Pile Of Corpses
Demdike Stare – Triptych
Bee Mask – Canzoni Dal Laboratorio Del Silenzio Cosmico
Gang Gang Dance – Eye Contact
Mark McGuire – A Young Person’s Guide
The Field – Looping State of Mind
Jean Claude Vannier – Roses Rouge Sang

Please buy if you enjoy – support the artists.

LIVE MUSIC
Loren Connors – Café Oto
Johann Johannson – LSO St Lukes
Oxbow – Buffalo Bar
Steve Ignorant – Shepherds Bush
Keith Fullerton Whitman/Rene Hell/Heatsick/Andre Vida – CAMP Basement
Raagnagrok – Bethnal Green Working Mens Club
Colorama – Dublin Castle

Bummers of the year were the tragic loss of Trish Keenan from Broadcast and the awful Field Day festival in Hackney.

2012 will see the release of our second album (Mayan calendar permitting).

This is the first of a new (ir)regular series as I dip into The Untied Knot’s CD/vinyl/mp3 collection and dig out some firm favourites from A to Z.

A is for Astral Social Club

If you’ve never heard one of ASC’s brilliant and bizarrely-named ecstatic electronic noise collages you’re missing a treat. Neil Campbell’s genre-defying sound pile-ups range from warped ADD undanceable beat driven work-outs to shimmering multi-core power drones. I hesitate to use the term psychedelic because of the inevitable peace and love connotations but listening to this music is probably the closest to an aural hallucinogen I’ve ever got.

Campbell is a stalwart of the UK underground and I first ventured upon his music whilst he was at the helm of Vibracathedral Orchestra where the drone aesthetic was in strong evidence. Ever-evolving, he split from them in 2006 to proceed with this stellar monikered largely solo project. The chance to experience Astral Social Club live at the kind of volume that carries you into a synaesthetic maelstrom is one not to be overlooked and has been documented previously by me here.

Recommended releases:

Neon Pibroch (Important Records)

For those of you who’ve been asking about the incidental music from our recent gig, here’s a Spotify playlist featuring about 80% of it.
And here’s the rest on a Youtube playlist.

Trainspotter alert – the only tracks I couldn’t find on Spotify/Youtube were:
“Folk Ghost” Douglas Wood
“Prelude and Dawn” Basil Kirchin
“All Gone, All Gone” Palace Songs (The live versions on Youtube are awful!)
“Open Letter To The Older Generation” Dick Clark
“John Peel’s Voice” Delia Derbyshire with Brian Hodgson

Enjoy it kids!

This Saturday marks my 4th visit to Capsule’s superlative Supersonic festival in Birmingham.
Because I’m a getting a little bit excited about it here’s a link to 13 live sets from the 2007 edition on Last FM including Oxbow, Mogwai, Voice Of The Seven Woods and Kid 606.

Enjoy…