Big thanks to everyone who came down to NORAVE at the Art chool last Week - a great time was had by all! Even though the music was disparate people seemed to really dig the lo-fi electro funk of Ben Butler AND the heavy heavy stoner rock of Holy Mountain, the bittersweet confessionals of Blood Of The Bull AND the wonk-step DJing by Dam Mantle.
Speaking of, here's a full download of Dam Mantle's exclusive Super-Hybrid mini mix, as a wee thank you:
Fast Motion - Becoming Real (DVA's high emotion Remix) Fall Short - Ramadanman The Loot - J Treole (Sully Remix) If U Want Me - Deadboy nswl004 - Jam City Work Them - Ramadanman Simpatico - Anthony "Shake" Shakir Back Home - Gold Panda Space Juke - DJ Rashad Madame Butterfly Act 2 - Puccini
Listen online, stream and download the Little Rock podcast every month on Radio Magnetic from the people behind Little Rock Records and the Shallow Rave blog.
In anticipation of their forthcoming NORAVE freshers ball, Team Little Rock present an exclusive mix from Dam Mantle, plus mini-mixes from The Niallist and Kid Ritalin.
Team Little Rock return, in the flesh, to the Art School on Wednesday 15 September, presenting Holy Mountain, Blood of the Bull and Ben Butler and Mousepad live. Dam Mantle, Molotov Disco and Team Little Rock will be occupying the DJ booth, and art instillations will come from a selection of Glasgow artists. Entry is free to freshers, £3 to anyone else.
News just in - Holy Mountain have been added to the bill of our NORAVE Art School Freshers Party, happening a week tomorrow. Expect some blistering freeform heavy rock action. If you want to check out what they wound like, they have a free download single up on Winning Sperm Party - at: http://winningspermparty.com/node/223
We've already blogged about the other live guests, but here's a short mix by Dam Mantle so you know what to expect from his DJ set.
Well, there's been a bit of a change of plan to our proposed Art School NORAVE residency. The Arty now want us do it on a weekend night on a monthly basis. These details are being finalised as I write.
We will still be holding the Freshers Party in the Vic Bar on Wednesday September 15th, as previously advertised, with special guests (and Shallow Rave favourites) Ben Butler & Mouse Pad (live), Blood Of The Bull (live), Dam Mantle (dj set) and Team Little Rock djs. Doors open at 9pm and close at 2am, and entry is £3 or FREE if you are a student at the GSA. Huzzah!
There will be free CDs for the first 50 folk in the door (as usual at Little Rock gigs) and I have put together a special promo mix for the night too, called "Bring The Noise". This is pretty different to what I normally DJ, with 10 tunes in 20 minutes, and showcases my more eclectic/noisy leanings. There's some metal in here btw - but you can still dance to it:
Sepultura - Refuse/Resist Dizzee Rascal - Pussyole (Old School) Sleigh Bells v Busta Rhymes - Tell Em Busta (Flowmack) Daft Punk - Technologic (Basement Jaxx Kontrol Mix) Gold Blood - Hair Tiga - What You Need Dead Prez - Hip Hop Doctor P & Flux Pavillion - Stinkfinger The Prodigy - Everybody In The Place Public Enemy / Anthrax - Bring The Noise
It's our 3rd birthday here at Little Rock, so to celebrate we have a few freebies coming your way over the next week. First up is the FUCKNO EP - featuring new tracks by 7 of the acts featured on the FUCKNO LP (still available to download). In keeping with the spirit of NORAVE the tracks veer from post-crunk to delicate ambient, from noise-hop to torch song to a bizarre afro-rock-house jam to end it all. All tracks are at 320Mb and the whole thing clocks in at 49 minutes. Total artronica. Go get:
We've chatted about Ultimate Thrush repeatedly on the radio, in person and on here, and it's fair to say they're one of our absolute favourite local bands. Another of Glasgow's D.I.Y. and experimental scene, they released a 13 minute, ten track album through Winning Sperm Party, as well as a gorgeous, limited edition tape through Milk Records.
One of our most enduring memories of Ultimate Thrush was prepping the next act at our NORAVE deletion party in the backstage area, when their vocalist burst, mid-song, through the door. Dressed in a robe and rubber mask, and still holding his microphone, he climbed screaming onto me, then ran back to performing.
Spiritual and touring brothers with Divorce, they're a far more spastic and noise-driven proposition, but equally as devastating live. For FUCKNO, we've used the audio from their live performance at Optimo back in December, which, raw as it is, gives a pretty good impression of how chaotic they are live. Check the videos for proof- Jonney Buck's footage of Ultimate Thrush. Ultimate Thrush - Complex Cat (Live At Optimo)
It's almost at an end! Only one more post to go and that will be the entire album comped and available to download as a oner - with maybe a special surprise for you guys if you're lucky!
But we're not through with the countdown yet, no siree Bob. Here's a track from well known Glasgow alt-guitar-noise heroes Vars Of Litchi. Vars play loose, improvised alt-rock on guitar and drums, and have been kicking out the jams in Glasgow and around the UK for a few years now. "There's Movement From The Kitchen" is taken from their forthcoming album, and is remiscent of Lee Ranaldo and Billy Cobham on shitloads of psychedelics jamming in a washing machine. Enjoy!
You will know of Louts by now, surely? He and Fox Gut Daata released a split download 7 on Little Rock last year, as part of the second birthday giveaway bonanza. See the little box just above this and to the right that says "Stuff We've Done"? Well click on Releases and it's in there.
Mr Cuneen, who also moonlights as one half of the Dam Mantle live experience, almost didn't get this to us in time (the clock has been ticking!) but we are overflowing with joy that we can now get him and his scuzzed-up lo-fi hip-hop sound onto the compilation. The break in this tune is naggingly famiiar - any ideas as to what it might be?
Gummy Stumps have been knocking around the Glasgow scene for a few years now - they played with us at Rock'n'Shock 3 all the way back in the dark days of 2006. Comprised of an ex-member of Tigersushi's nowave merchants Park Attack, and fronted by the legendary Glasgow character "Spicy" Colin, Gummy Stumps make a kind of Fallian racket - but The Fall with a large rocket wedged up their arse and the door outlook of Glasgow (as opposed to the sunny disposition of Manchester). And yes they are as good as that sounds. They are in fact awesome!
We're very happy to be able to offer you lot the first track on the upcoming Gummy Stumps debut album release, a track called "Piecemeal". The album is called "Thwarted Mirth" and is a collection of Gummy tracks from the last 3 years. It will be released very soon through the mighty Winning Sperm Party (who are on fire right now) as a free download or a limited edition CD with very special artwork. We're looking forward to this!
Minus Two Quartet is the work of two relatively well known musician/producers from down south, Michael Wright (of Brassica and Gold Blood) and Stuart Lee (of Jacob's Stories). They came together for a series of improvised ambient sessions under the MTQ moniker, and the results are beautiful. Melancholic keys brush up against sighs and clicks to create waves of dynamics - vocal harmonies and quirks are filtered through an Eno-esque synth palette on tracks that can be anywhere up to 14 minutes long.
We are very glad to have them involved in FUCKNO and to present to you here an extract from their contribution, fittingly titled "Untitled".
OK, we are entering the final stretches of the Countdown to Fuckno - there's now 5 days left to go.
Germlin is the now-de-artiste of Joe Howe, who in the past has been a part of Gay Against You, and is currently making music as part of Ben Butler & Mouse Pad. It didn't feel right ot have one half of G.A.Y. (yes, Average Joe Stalin IS Lachlann Ratray), one of the key acts on the original NORAVE comp, on FUCKNO without having something from the other half. So, we hassled Joe and he has kindy agreed to donate a track to the album. Hurrah!!
It's the Germlin remix of Japanese noise merchant Marousa - fine by us as Japanese noise is very NORAVE. It's taken from the album Watermelon Dude Zone, which is available to download now (donations more than welcome) from: germlin.bandcamp.com. Get it, it's great!
The Radiation Line are a surreal, dark-minded, experimental collective from Stirling, Glasgow and elsewhere, who fuse the drone / ambient styles of SunO)))), Tribes of Neurot et al with acid-fried shimmering guitar lines and disturbing feedback. We first met them at our anti-xmas party, co-organised by White Jam and became firm friends over drunken ramblings about psychedelica, heaviness and experimental music.
A dark and impenetrable fog of feedback; ominous gurglings as the earth shifts beneath your feet; light sprays highlight blurred shadows; exiled pagan monsters break bones beneath their hooves. That is the Radiation Line.
The Radiation Line have released a number of self-pressed, limited edition EPs, available from Avalanche, Monorail and at live gigs, but a recent bootleg recording from the 13th Note is available here (linked from their myspace). This year sees them releasing their debut full-length on Infinite Exchange records, a split 7" with Basillica for Turgid Animal records, as well as EP5 and EP6. They also begin a tour on the 29th of April at Forest Cafe in Edinburgh, covering Scotland and Northern England. See their myspace for full details.
Live in fear puny mortals! The "slobbering one man aural Hari-Kiri" of Kylie Minoise is once again unleashed on the world. Using microphones, effects pedals, electromagnets and physical contortionism, KM creates devastating blasts and waves of feedback which pummel the listener into submission.
Something of a local legend, as well as an international superstar (check his 'live in Japan' EP), we're very pleased to have had him play for us back at our 2008 xmas party. It was terrifying, though not as much as his legendary one-on-one shows at Instal. Line up to get locked in a small, darkened room with Kylie and his high end sonic assault. What? You're scared you say?
Well here's a little something to get you in the mood, taken from his forthcoming album, the fantastically titled "Sid Vicious Occult School Of Motoring":
You might have heard of Kids On TV by now - if not where the hell have you been? Certainly not hanging out at all those ultra hip alternative gay bars thats fo shizzle.
Their 2007 LP "Mixing Business With Pleasure" is a classic of queercore electro, featuring as it does collabs with Boy George and dyke heroines Lesbians On Ecstacy, as well as tunes like "Hanky Code", "Breakdance Hunx", and a lovely doo-wop cover of Jermaine Stewart STD-paranoia classic "We Don't Have To Take Our Clothes Off (To Have A Good Time)".
Their new album "Pantheon" is due for release any time now, an event we're looking forward to greatly, but in the meantime they have very kindly donated a remix of their amazingly-titled "Cockwolves" by Yes Sir Idol to FUCKNO. Lap it up baby!
Shallow Rave's very own master of destruction, the founder-king of clusterfunk, Dalai Dahmer drops a fresh beat for you. This is an extract from the uncharacteristically stripped back 'Danger Is Dropping' session, recorded this month.
Another of the Creative Commons scene to have made an impact on us in the past couple of years, J-Lab was one of the brains behind the Berlin and London Net Audio festivals, one third of Tri-oon, and the first release from Unoiki. He's also a true character and can sustain rants far longer than any other party-hard techno head I've ever encountered.
Fusing techno, electro and experimentalism, J-lab makes music for the head and the feet. Playful experimentalism, backed by an impressive knowledge and technical approach to music. A true artist, and one worth following, his soundcloud is the best way to keep track of him online. He's also released on the netlabels Metroline, Adrecordings, and Deletetechno.com.
We're very proud to be featuring J-Lab on FUCKNO, and highly recommend anyone with a taste for the dark and experimental side of electronica to go check it out.
Beatsmith, wordsmith, member of the gutter press, DJ, curator of Black Lantern music and Weaponizer, Slam Poet, MC, Ungodly Spambot of Twitter and friend of Team Little Rock. Ladies, gentlemen and any other dominant lifeforms, Little Rock are proud to present Texture. Texture's biography would take far too long to fill in here - suffice to say, as a journalist, author, slam poet and MC, Texture's passion is words (Check out his Aphasia EP on Black Lantern to hear more). However, he also produces and DJs, and has contributed a rare solo production for FUCKNO. A Dark Wind Blows' only vocals are taken from a certain group of Canadian anarchists, and are backed by a dark, throbbing electro pulse interspersed with delicate melodies.
We don't know that much about Mr Doxy except that he makes rather good breakcore, and that he missed out on being on the first NORAVE comp by the skin of a mouse's ball hair. So to rectify that situation we ar emaking sure he gets onto FUCKNO to represent the breakcore massive.
Hannas Barber is the work of three guys, Ed, Dan and Simon, and while their music takes in elements of broken beat, jazz, dub, glitch and more, it's pretty hard to pigeon hole. Except for the super-massive gaping black chasm of a genre that is Norave.
Recording music in lengthy jam sessions and re-editing it for release, Hannas Barber are prolific chaps. Simon also does visual work under the name Vitascope, and has supplied visuals on many occassions for our friends at Sound The Alarm. After many releases over the years, on Glasgow's Dalriada records and their own imprint Instant Action Object, HB last year released the 19-track CD, which is how they came to our attention. But we are glad to be able to present an exclusive Hannas Barber track for FUCKNO, the squelchy dub-not-dub soundscape that is "The End Jump". It's rather good, even if we say so ourselves!
Dreamy winkle supergroup, Boy Army, is a project consisting of several unauthorized persons including artist, grot novelist & nudey model, Mark Tolson, ex-chateaux hypoglyceamia artist & Machete Attack warbler , Laurence Elliott & big dyslexia music mind Darren Cullen (ex-Shitdisco, Age Of Consent) who swan about in their fluffy cloud bus, offering up fags to single mothers at public transport waiting locations in the rain.
'Love Without Brains' is Larry & Darren's baby, & is about what the title suggests & about the breakdown of a beautiful relationship when you have to end up living in an old goats shed round the back of an in-bred's pub in a tory Roman walled cathedral city better called Chic Hysteria, walking to the poop a scoop at Jubilee park at 5 in the mourning, because the bigots won't let you use their bogs, with a huge bag of your own shit & no canine friend to disguise the abomination, then crawling back to the slug infested shit whole for a cry & an angry wank. Because of her. Come on girls, get wet!