The ABAGA label - this keeps getting better

Edinburgh's ABAGA label has started the year with the kind of flying start that, if it were an athlete, would put them top of the list for a drugs test. You may have heard the Tactus remix from the magnificent Profisee EP in my Dandelion Radio show earlier in the year, and out now are releases from Jammin J and the ever-wonderful TeKlo, both of which feature in April.

Remarkably, they offer some of this stuff for free, as is the case with the recent Square 1 EP from Bristolian Quektis, a track from which opened the show in March. The track in question, a remix of the tune from Dumbo that soundtracks the most bizarre and nightmarish non-Pinocchio sequence in Disney history, twists and re-casts the tune into something that, incredibly, enhances its troubled brilliance. You can hear a similar artistic countenance at play on a cartoonish rendention of Shirley Temple's 'Lollipop' and a sublime re-working of Bob Marley's 'Sun Is Shining'.

The latter also makes an appearance in my April show. It's not often I find room to cram in three releases from the same label, especially in what is an absolutely storming month for other new releases, all of which exemplifies what an incredible high ABAGA are on at the moment. Join me in looking forward to what they come up with over the rest of 2012. But join me first in my April show and grab a listen to something from three of the year's finest releases thus far.

Mark W

Amstatten Bedroom Punk

The more music I hear the more I realise it just can't get too abrasive, so long as that abrasiveness comes in a package equal parts jerky, jagged and distorted to hell. I knew nothing about Amstatten Bedroom Punk until I stumbled across them following a recommendation from the Drug Punk blog, but I now realise they've been doing this kind of thing better than pretty much anyone else, and doing it for much longer than I originally suspected.

They're from Hungary, and their sound reminds me of the one I used to get in those days when, as a child, they put me to sleep with gas in a dentist's surgery, and I slipped into some horrible half-dream filled for some reason with rubber springs, while the ghostly dim fuzz of the dentist's drill buzzed threateningly in the background. Except Amstatten Bedroom Punk push the drill right up to the top of the mix and render the dental dream nightmare so garish it becomes perversely present, in a thrilling, self-immolating kind of way.

Their substantially unpronounceable vxcfsxa EP is available for free download at their bandcamp site and you might be advised, when there, to check our their Osterreich Uber Alles and Nine Inch releases from 2011. You can hear their Ciganydome track in my Dandelion Radio show this month.

Download

Mark W

In session in March - ANT

It's almost twelve years since ANT recorded his one session for the John Peel show, though of course he appeared on that programme many times as Antony Harding - drummer with Peel legends Hefner. He also recorded a session for Tom Robinson in 2006. This month, these all too rare appearances receive a timely follow-up when ANT's first session for Dandelion Radio is broadcast in my March show.

The Peel session coincided with Ant's first solo album and since then there have been a whole procession of releases across Europe and Asia on a range of different labels. His new album is set for release on the Italian We Were Never Boring label and versions of two tracks from the album feature in the session, together with a magnificent cover of a Caroline Lufkin song and the entirely exclusive 'Light This Love & Watch It Burn' which you can't get in any form at the moment and won't be able to for some time. So the only way to hear it is to tune into the show.

Ant's tunes are of the softly laconic variety but with a subtle barb always lurking below the gentleness. For all my respect for the work of those whose mission in life is to assault our eardrums (and you can hear plenty of that in the show - I give you Fat Janitor, Your Enemy and Amstatten Bedroom Punk for starters), I've always reserved a special affection for those who are able to do such wonderful things beneath a cloak of apparent gentleness. Ant has this in abundance and I'm pleased to say that his session offers a glimpse of him at his very best.

Mark W

Tear Talk - Port Sunlight (Bleeding Gold)

Although much of my life at the moment involves happily digesting the slabs of noisy guitar destruction as practised by the likes of Fat Janitor, Amstatten Bedroom Punk and Your Enemy, my ears are always open to the prospect of discovering the occasional band that can knock out a damn good tune with freshness and originality.

I was therefore delighted when the excellent Bleeding Gold label put me onto Tear Talk, a band in that rich tradition of Liverpudlian music that stretches from the Fab Four via The Teardrop Explodes and Wild Swans, through such far too easily overlooked eighties practitioners of the art like Care and Cook Da Books and more recently The Cranebuilders. It is the last of these with whom Tear Talk are most comparable. Beautifully crafted and unashamedly pop melodies sit atop a musical backdrop that switches from crowded to sparse and back again via the most gorgeous time switches and chord changes.

Their EP, Port Sunlight, contains many such gems. Its archetypal expression is found in the sugared adrenhalin rush found on 'Sleepwalking' but it's in the frantic 'Lost At Sea', which features in my February show on Dandelion Radio, and the bewitching, distorted 'Dry Blood' - which I'll play in March - that offer a glimpse of the full scope of the band's potential.

Bleeding Gold, as they've been doing so magnificently of late, have clearly identified this potential. I invite you to do the same.

Mark W

In session in my February show: Dementio13

Given the sublimely varied electronic forces at work behind the music of Paul Foster, aka Dementio13, it's hard to explain his music and even harder to explain why I've never featured it in session on my show before. Four years on from the first appearance of his music in my show, I decided it was time to do something about it. The results stream for the first time tomorrow at noon (UK time) on Dandelion Radio, with repeat streamings on most days throughout February.

I first played Dementio13 on Dandelion Radio in February 2008, so Paul was one of the people at the very top of my list to appear in our 'Five Years' anniversary compilation last summer, and I knew he would produce something extraordinary. With the (forgive me) quixotic 'Quixote' he duly obliged and a sneak peak of his forthcoming Crash St album (due on 1 May) reveals him to be still moving forward in invigorating and never predictable directions, his exploratory electronica more varied in texture and mood than pretty much any of his contemporaries.

All of the tracks in the session mix will feature on Crash St so I'm pleased to say that my show will be the first chance to hear much of what's on it. You can, however, pre-order the album for an unfeasibly low price at http://dementio13.com/. While you're there, may I suggest a valuable use of your time would be to peruse his fascinating back catalogue. Unless you've got it all already, of course, in which case presumably you know what I mean.

I don't do this sort of thing very often, but I thought the occasion called for a personal top ten of Paul's EPs and albums, both as Dementio13 and, with the equally extraordinary Pixieguts, in Cwtch. I know Mojo or Uncut or somebody would probably call this a 'buyer's guide' or something equally prosaic and consumerist, but I'm just going to label it a list of great music which, remarkably, all comes from the same inspirational fount. To be honest, it's all amazing stuff and I'm sure I'll want to change the order as soon as I've posted it, but here goes:

1. Dementio13 - Blacklung Mixer (2008)
2. Cwtch - be.ep (2010)
3. Dementio13 - Snackshack (2011)
4. Dementio13 - Blank (2009)
5. Dementio13 - The Hobbyist (2011)
6. Cwtch - Cwtch (2009)
7. Cwtch - Beyond Transgression (2011)
8. Dementio13 - Rebop (2010)

9. Dementio13 - Malt (2011)
10. Dementio13 - The Ballad Of Milton Friedman (2009)

Mark W

Labels To Love Top Ten - February 2012

It's been a depressing feature of 2012 thus far that so many individuals who run some of my favourite small labels have expressed the concern that they can't be optimistic about still being around in 2013. Obviously I hope they're wrong about that, but it got me thinking that, however much I value good websites and blogs in their efforts to discover and celebrate new music, a number of these small labels consistently come up with the goods and remain the most reliable source of such stuff that they'd leave a hell of a hole in my listening experience if they were no longer there.

Feeling a bit powerless, I felt all I could do, in addition to continuing to feature their releases in my Dandelion Radio show, was to keep a monthly log of those labels that, in a current snapshot in time, are flying the flag for innovative new sounds most vigorously, and do this on a more or less monthly basis.

February 2012 features my first such stab. What follows are the ten labels whose music I'm playing most both privately and in the show right now and in recent months. Some are still relatively new, others well-established. What they have in common is their contribution to the discovery and promotion of great tunes.

Inevitably, many of my favourite labels won't make the list in a particular month, often because they've gone through a period of relative inactivity or simply that I've found myself listening to something else of late.

Anyway, for now, I reckon these ten labels are doing the job as well as anyone at the moment, and roughly in this order. Long may they thrive.

10. Bristol Archive Records:
9. Audio Antihero
8. Warp
7. I Blame The Parents
6. Probe Plus
5. Metal Postcard
4. Fruits De Mer
3. Bleeding Gold
2. Daddy Tank
1. Melting Records

Many of the above feature in my February show on Dandelion Radio, with more, including tracks from some great forthcoming releases, to follow in March.

Mark W

Vert:x - 1947

If you heard the first Vert:x release for Unwashed Territories you'll know what to expect: sonic overload, where guitar and electronic pyrotechnics crash around psychedelic/krautrock drones destroying patterns that you suspect may not have existed in the first place as they go. It's an exhilarating experience, so when it comes in the form of 15 and 21 minute tracks, as it does in their new 1947 release, the effects of the bombardment are longer lasting and even more pleasing.

This time the textures are even more intense, lulling the listener into downtempo peaks and valleys of sound until you come out the other end like a traveller from a voyage both mesmerising and disorientating, like Odysseus emerging from the land of the lotus eaters not entirely sure whether he's been drugged into bliss or had his senses blasted into oblivion by some crazed hallucinatory demon.

Vert:x are a pretty special experience live, so every time they play a gig or a festival a bunch of people who've been there always rush out and grab a copy of their first release for us, the glorious transmission u.t., making it easily the most popular release on Unwashed Territories thus far. Each release is available for less than the price of a pint, with the effects considerably more pleasing and the hangover an absolute delight. Get the two releases here:

1947
transmission-u.t.