UT-003 transmissions u.t. (Dandelion Radio Session) - Vert:x

Unwashed Territories proudly present the krautrock/spacerock-inspired churning epics of the amazing Vert:x. 'transmissions u.t.' gives an official release to the four mindblowing tracks they recorded exclusively for my Dandelion Radio show in November. In a year of great sessions for the show, this was one of the best. Neil Whitehead and Keith Hill make seductive, multi-textured landscapes of sound that stun the senses into submission.

Featuring over half an hour of Vert:x at their best, 'transmissions u.t.' can be got here for a mere £1.99 and there's the added bonus of a free track, Acidic Clone, originally released on their magnificent 'a.f.m.o.m.a.h.e.' CD.

Get amongst it.

It's all happening very quickly. Pindar's Apes confirmed for release on Unwashed Territories

I'm very pleased to announce that we've completed negotiations with the amazing Pindar's Apes to release their new album on Unwashed Territories some time in spring. Information on the release date when we have it. If you've not yet acquainted yourself with this great band, they're from Norwich, which is always a good start, and you can hear their 'Elvis In Shrouds' track in my February show on Dandelion Radio, streaming as usual from 1 February at http://www.dandelionradio.com/.

We're just having the artwork finalised for the Vert:x release, and we're looking to have that available on 1 February.

I also keep forgetting to mention that, if you want a taster of the Hehfu and Hogarths releases, we do have a couple of tracks available for free download from here and here.

Cheers.

Vert:x confirmed as next release on Unwashed Territories

I'm pleased to confirm that the third Unwashed Territories released will be an EP of the Dandelion Radio session recorded by Vert:x and broadcast in my November show. While you wait for that, do yourself a favour and hear more from Vert:x here. The band also have a track coming out on a forthcoming Fruits De Mer compilation. Incidentally, there are three tracks from a 'not available for sale' Fruits De Mere compilation in my January Dandelion show.

Just a reminder of other releases available at Unwashed Territories, digital copies of which you can get here:

UT-001 Beggars Belief - The Hogarths
UT-002 Perfection Is Boring - Hehfu

UT-002 Hehfu - Perfection Is Boring

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. In any decently ordered universe songs by Hehfu would be number one in every nation and on every planet and everyone would be a whole lot happier for it.

While there are many bands and artists whose music I love very much (and more appearing all the time – keep ‘em coming), none has the melodic sense, the effortless delivery or the sheer timelessness to lodge into my head as I drift off to sleep in quite the way the music of Hehfu does. And there would be nothing amiss should I wake in the morning to hear the milkman merrily whistling the same tune to bring in the day (except I don’t have a milkman).

There is the power in all Hehfu songs to reach well beyond the likes of me and, frankly, please whole masses of people. And much as I love all the other stuff I listen to, I’m realistic enough to admit that there is very little of it that has this kind of potential (the kind that draws in milkmen, that is, although some of it may appeal to Pat Mustard).

This album brings together Hehfu’s three albums so far. They haven’t had the attention they deserve. I named him number one in my Listen To Me top ten on Dandelion Radio last year, ahead of the likes of Th’ Parish, The Volcanic Ash Cloud and Vert:x, which is saying a lot.

You can get a copy of ‘Perfection Is Boring’ for just £2.99 from http://unwashedterritories.bandcamp.com/releases - 14 beautifully crafted, edgy pop gems for less than the average price of a pint.

I also feature three exclusive tracks from Hehfu in session in my January show (streaming at various times throughout the month at www.dandelionradio.com). Find out more about Hehfu at www.myspace.com/hehfu.

UT-001 The Hogarths - Beggars Belief

Availability:

Limited edition CD £6.99 plus £1 P&P in the UK only. You can pay by paypal: let me have your address via mark.whitby2@ntlworld.com.

Digital release for £3.99 via http://unwashedterritories.bandcamp.com/releases.

The first release on the new Unwashed Territories label is Beggars Belief by The Hogarths. It's the kind of record that makes you want to start a record label.

It’s the mixing of styles, the variety of instrumentation, deftness of touch and the refusal to view any musical territory as uninhabitable, that sets the album apart. ‘I May Kill You’, for example, utilises a Duane Eddy guitar line to minimal but brilliant effect. The Eddy effect is warped and disjointed into something misshapen and sublime in the supremely cluttered swarm of ‘Pink’ ‘Yellow Bellied Pondweller’ is a slow-burning swampy crawl with an almost Gene Clark-like propensity to yield sound features that probably aren’t actually there. Such passages of instrumentation, textures and references fall away and recur throughout.

There aren’t too many comparisons to make with Crocodiles here, but regular listeners of my show will know that their albums have a way of sounding great to me at the start and then somehow sounding even greater later on. So it is here. The brooding ‘Whisky Queen Mary’, which I play in my January Dandelion Radio show, cranks up the intensity, and is followed by the lilting ‘Pigeon Pollock Stains’, its references to the interface between the made and the discovered – with the latter playing no less a part in the creative process – a template for the album as a whole, its play with the Socratic concepts of the art and the knack redolent throughout this amazing collection, just as the world-weary tenor growl of Jack rubs up against the liquid smoothness of Olga Hogarth’s voice.

While it’s possible these names may be pseudonyms, the unity of sound that blends so many barely compatible musical features is something best achieved by two people playing everything, including their obsessions, untainted by other musical input. While the bastardisation of a work via the influence of, say, a bass player and drummer who won’t do what their told, is often no bad thing, ‘Beggars Belief’ has an exquisite value that is so neatly executed that you feel even the smallest of musical additions might queer the mix to detrimental effect. There aren’t many albums of which this could be said, and this is one of the few to warrant such reverence thus far into the current century.