We were somewhere around the bathroom on the edge of the studio when the mints began to take hold, the rain was lashing, the rodents were missing, the smell of fresh Montana was in the air, a rainy Monday, stuck here in the studio all day today, work to do, things to throw paint at, not hanging around, nothing to do but frown? Nah, let’s have a trawl through the e.mail and see what the world has been throwing our way, there’s a mountain of e.mail festering up again, generic mass-mailout e.mails that insert a cold-hearted name to make us think the person who pressed the button cares a lot and what about those garbage pale kids and the food that live aid bought, it is indeed a dirty job but someone has to read it and  “Hey blah, how was your weekend, what about the game eh” no mention of which game, the Reds? The Jets? Wigan Warriors? FC last Friday night? (bring back Norton!), “hey, here’s some Monday morning music for you, the NME already love it, so does that girl at Vice, you need to get on board quickly, we know you’ll love it”  . So far there’s been some so-bad-they’re-almost-good born again reformed hair metal from Spain, a “British shoegaze artist who will evoke the rebirth of the movement” or so said the Canadian press release sending coal back to Newcastle, there’s been some really uninspiring unadventurous sub Porcupine Tree neo-prog tedium – there’s some really unadventurously polite tedium peddled as prog rock these days, tempting to stop trawling and throw on the real proper prog of that first gloriously fragile IQ album or maybe some heart-starting early Cardiacs or an emergency playing of a live bootleg of The Lamb and the big lump of story and music and how a large black cloud descended on Time Square and just prog the flip out of the day and delete all these (annoying) e.mails and spraying things like Rael the imperial aerosol king. Don’t mention the damn game, there’s something moving in the sidewalk steam…

Hang on though, hang on! Hang on a minute, hold off with the carpet crawlers, this is rather delicately glorious, United Bible Studies? Who are they?  “MIE Music is extremely pleased to be releasing in a limited edition the new LP The Ale’s What Cures Ye by United Bible Studies; a compendium of traditional and modern folk songs as interpreted by the band and inspired by Folkways” – and is a nutshell of roaming roads and strong ale, is what we have here, some beautifully simple wonderfully played traditional folk. 

Did you notice the break in the flow there? This United Bible Studies album has taken up quite a few hours of the working day and the listening time – taking to road and apparently   United Bible Studies “are a folk band from Ireland with members from the UK” (and the label would love us to say you can pre-order on the MIE Website.. ). Really beautifully spirited traditional folk, nothing groundbreaking or different, just really good traditional folk music  Can’t find anything of the beautiful new album on-line yet, here’s a previous album from United Bible Studies, something a more “modern” and less “traditional”, a drone or two and not quite as much of a fully fledged traditional folk thing as the highly recommended new album, equally as interesting though. Actually there’s a lot to explore via their bandcamp page, interesting band here…

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Meanwhile this one sounds a lot more experimental, interesting bit of bible study going on here

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Meanwhile word from Miraculous Mule…  hang on, first this, have to put this here for no reason what so ever….

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Word from the good people from our current favouritist band of all, Miraculous Mule

“On Saturday 3rd October Miraculous Mule were privileged to part of the We Shall Overcome weekend of events which took place throughout the UK and Ireland. The chances are you will not have heard about this large musical mass protest via the main stream media but take it from us, it has provided hope and assistance to the many people who are suffering due to the cruel and unnecessary cuts imposed by the current UK government. We took courage and inspiration from the evening and will do everything we can to promote this movement and help to organise an event in our own London borough of Camden next year. It is our belief that through unity, kindness and compassion we can weather this storm and bring about change. Please visit the We Shall Overcome website and help spread the word”.

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Rambling Steve added – “Cheers to everyone who came along Saturday night for We Shall Overcome. You were an ultra generous bunch, and we raised nearly £800 and got a shed-load of food. The food is going off to Leytonstone Food Bank today, and the dosh will be divided between the Food Bank, Sally’s Kitchen, and the Christian Kitchen. Thank you everyone again! And of course a special thank you to all the musicians who give up their time for free for the cause (and who also donated 50% of their merch sales!) – Alan Tyler, Steve White and Doug, Morton Valence, Jack Sharp, Miraculous Mule, and of course, Hank Wangford. Steve, Anna, and Nick for saying a few words over the evening. And lastly well done everyone at We Shall Overcome HQ for pulling such a massive event together all over the country”.

“I can die happy now” said the girl next to me, she isn’t being silly, Miraculous Mule in a basement ….

Onward with the trawling “Please find below the new album from Smokey Bastard, ‘Back To The Drawing Room’. A 10 track, unique masterpiece of folk inspired punk rock, with added banjo, mandolin and accordion for good measure” – well not that sure unique is the word, but hey, if energetic Eastern European folk flavoured punk pop is your thing, then here’s a band for oyu. Eastern European sounding rather than Elnish, they are from the UK though ans you like your Flogging Molly and yer Pogues and yer generic American punk pop, then I guess they have something. The album is out in November…  Hang on, off with the folk punks, in with the folk brass, what is is with folk today?Why are folk flooding us with folk? On with the “soul shaking, border defying” Raya Brass Band has a new record called RAYA. Off with the whatever he just called it, I prefer the Brighouse and Rastrick or maybe a bit of James Last. .

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Onward with the carpet crawling, this here e.mail insists we’ll love this one, “we think you’ll love this one” it says, they always say that, most of them weren’t watching the game we were watching….

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Hypnocuts will be part of LeVant‘s upcoming EP “ToneSkin” due to be released in November 2015. ” It’s a dreamy fusion between electronic ethos and modern classical and I feel this has the type of influences to resonate with a lot of people in the world. It brings to mind the exotic nature of how Jon Hopkins, Clark and Lulu Rouge put their music together and we are excited to bring this track to the world today” So said someone else, you can make up your own mind, kind of like it over here, kind of, in a floaty floating around dreamy floaty kind of way, kind of…. and here’s a band who sound like middle period Metallica, think we’ll pass by that one  and here’s another that yer man who sent the e.mail insists is the hot new thing that everyone is going to be raging and drooling over, it isn’t. Hang on, here’s one

Hi there. Following is a press release and link to Poyekhali! – a song that I wrote in honour Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space. I’m looking for help in promoting the and possible collaboration for the future of the project. I really hope you enjoy it,  XX Úlfur.

Úlfur Eldjárn releases “Poyekhali!” – first track from the upcoming solo album – The Aristókrasía Project.

Úlfur Eldjárn is one of the rising stars of the Icelandic indie composer scene, known both for his work with the legendary cult band Apparat Organ Quartet, and his critically acclaimed compositions for film, TV, theatre and own compositional projects.

Poykhali! – is the first song to be released from his upcoming solo album called The Aristókrasía Project. The song is inspired by the Soviet astronaut, Yuri Gagarin – the first man in space – and his first hand account of seeing Earth from outer space.

The Aristókrasía Project is an inspirational musical journey through a utopian world of space travel, intelligent machines and futuristic societies. The music combines bold, melodic electronica with sublime string arrangements, minimal electronic beats and organic live percussion – topped with vocoded lyrics about Yuri Gagarin, the history of science and the love between humans and machines, to name a few of the topics.

The music is performed by Úlfur on analog synthesizers, electronics and vocoders, assisted by Samuli Kosminen (múm, Hauschka) on drums and percussion, Halldór Eldjárn, additional percussion and programming, and a quartet of distinguished Icelandic string players, including musicians who have performed with Björk, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Ben Frost and Nordic Affect.

Hang on, we remember this guy and his rather brilliant band, indeed “Úlfur Eldjárn is one of the rising stars of the Icelandic indie composer scene, known both for his work with the legendary cult band Apparat Organ Quartet, and his critically acclaimed compositions for film, TV, theatre and his own compositional projects”.How good its this session!

That’ll do, out of here, leaving on a jet plane, don’t know when I’ll be back again… I should probably proof read the page, nah, plane to catch…. you do it

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