Back to being back to the portal again or the planet or blaming turtles and we did say all this last week and the week(s) before and while the whole world window that stares back at us (only it probably was a television fizzing and going off and things back then when we first heard of the Whole World Window). The whole world window told us important things like the news of the latest Norman Bluntz tie and jacket combination, the www might be a portal now of course rather than a frothing television but we know who told us of it first, This five musical things thing is mostly about just that, five musical things that have passed by in the last few days, five soundbites, five slices of musical information along with those oh so vital vital links and signposts staring back and making that hissing noise…

And like we said around about this time last week (or the week before), on we go some more, on we go yet again, Burn down the internet some more, do it just for the insurance money or soemthing like that. There is always music isn’t there? There is always repeating things and doing a cut and paste of what you said last week isn’t there? Well isn’t there? Five more musical things then, same as we said last time, repeat these things, five (or so) musical things that have caught ears over the past few days, five musical things plucked from the overflowing in-box or the feeds or the clouds or wherever these things come from. boo hiss again…

Bandcamp Friday happens one a month, it means all proceeds from sales on Bandcamp go direct to the performers, bands and labels and Bandcamp wave their commission, it als omeans we get a mllion and one bands and labels asking for a plug or a post or a poke or whatever it is…

Five more musical things that have passed our way, five more things to check out should you wish to…

1: Xiu Xiu – No posture, bad posture, Flaming Hot Cheetohs, Fuego Takis, Rumpus Room, a fine piece of art featuring Angus Andrew of Liars, is taken from Xiu Xiu’s new album of duets, OH NO, out March 26, 2021.

“Xiu Xiu unveil a thumping new romp, “Rumpus Room” ft. Angus Andrew of Liars, the latest single from the duets album OH NO, out 26th March via Polyvinyl. The single release comes with a new video, directed by Xiu Xiu’s Angela Seo, who previously helmed the video for January’s lead single “A Bottle of Rum” which featured vocals from Liz Harris. “Rumpus Room” alternates between rambunctious, crowded bursts of noise and sparse, somewhat eerie moments of suspenseful build up. What starts with a thumping bass line and bizarre, distorted vocals grows to a rowdy chorus, where it sounds like every element, from the drums to the wails of “Rumpus Room!” is trying to outdo the other”.

Full detaits of that new Xiu Xiu album via Bandcamp of course…

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2: The Trudy are sounding as fine as ever, how beautiful is that start? The Trudy are tingling this time. They’ve quietly been getting on with the business of making fine fine pop music for years and years now, a real labour of love, The Trudy have a new single and a good looking video to go with it and a hope always born, a hopeday if you will – “this is the video for the song Dear Sancho by The Trudy. The video was made by Hally and we really can’t thank him enough for all his amazing work”. We’re guessing the single will be up on their Bandcamp page any moment now, if not then there are some previous delights to be found there. It is about the art of pop, the clever simplicity of it all and I do like that we don’t have to try and write about these things these days because telling people a band make beautifully formed pop music was never that easy, telling people a band make pop music kind of gives the impression that it isn’t a serious thing, pop music is a very serious thing, the art of pop, pop art, The Trudy make fine pop art. Here’s the new single, you just passed the links to their Bandcamp and Facebook pages. Do so like the look of that video, one of those always ever beautiful for ever kind of things that are stary in the sky. I do believe Dear Sancho might be one of The Trudy’s finest moments ever…

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3: Trigger Cut are back with more, back with more of the same really, the same was good though. Last time, back in 2019, we said of the Germans that they sound like Homage Freaks or Anorak Lovechild or Red Eye Express or Kodiac or those Scissormen or a… We said “This is good, this is very good, they said they were loud but then surely every band is loud if you turn them up enough, get what they mean though, they sound loud, Trigger Cut, they’re from Germany, that don’t sound like they’re from anywhere in particular, they sound like loads of bands who hung around Camden towards the end of last century, they sound like Homage Freaks or Anorak Lovechild or Red Eye Express or Kodiac or those Scissormen or a whole load of great bands that time forgot. Trigger Cut sound like the back room of the Bull and Gate or the Falcon, hell, they sound like the Sausage Machine, but this isn’t 1992 and Trigger Cut are from Stuttgard or maybe Munich, they got that Jesus Lizard thing going down, that Drive Like Jehu thing, that Big Black sound that launched a thousand bands, none of them were remarkably different, most of them could be excellent live of those backroom of Camden or where you happened to spend your backroom time. You know the score, you don’t need a review, you have the Bandcamp there, go listen for yourself”

And this time? This time a new album out on March 1st, more of the same with maybe just a little more, still as abrassive, still like being down the Bull and Gate with Red Eye Express or the Falcon with Scissormen, still sounding beuutifully 90’s and Camden, and yet moved on enough though, not standing still, still abrassive, they would have sounded good on the Eight Day Itch with Godlike Bass and yes all those Tads and Mudhoneys and we still need bands like Trigger Cut doing it properly don’t we? More here, more fireworks and things…

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Previously here on these fractured pages – ORGAN THING: Trigger Cut, they sound like Homage Freaks or Anorak Lovechild or Red Eye Express or Kodiac or those Scissormen or a…

4: Tijuana Hercules album Mudslod and the Singles (SkinGraft Records) – Where were we? Something about it being time for someone to save somebody’s neck or something like that? “Years in the making and featuring the talents of more than twenty musicians, Tijuana Hercules’s new long-player “Mudslod and the Singles” finds the band deep-diving into its patented “hillbilly-trance” sound: an oxygen-depriving bouillabaisse of boundary-busting blues,spaghetti-strung grooves, and tangled psychedelic roots music” and well it sounds like the Mexican desert to me, not that I’ve ever been to the Mexican desert, the nearest I ever got was a ZZ Top gig – this does kind of sound like the Top as well, the Top always made good music, it sounds like Captain Beefheart jamming with the renegade offshoots of ZZ Top somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the riffs began to take hold. The nearest I ever got to the desert or the Barstow was a bout of fractured fear and loathing on the central line heading East to West via the second hand bookshelf of the Record and Tape Exchange where the crows be picking at your flesh and you’ve got control over the situation.

Do like the way that almost skeletal almost sparse groove of this album locks on without really ever needing to lock on or commit to locking on. “Hailing from the southern regions of the U.S., John Vernon Forbes has  a long and storied history of making music, cartoons, and comical mischief. His illustrations recall the golden age of animation filtered through an absurdist lens -and this love of days gone by is rendered with a futurist’s ear in the blues-tinged music he’s been creating for decades”. And this new album, I hesitate to say the best yet for the last one was as fine as anything, this new album is as fine as anything and never ever  ever ever as obvious as ZZ Top or even the good Captain or anything else that might have been mentioned in the last few moments.

Did I ever tell you the story of the gang of performance artists who went for a walk in Death Valley armed with very little water and just one fancy umbrella between them? The rescue crew were not impressed with their high-hell misguidance and this new album does have me thinking about those boys in the desert with the girls in the boots. I wasn’t there of course, I was on the Central Line looking for Barstow station and an art gallery and instead getting off at Notting Hill and walking up past the Hall of The Mountain Grill cafe (yes it did exist, it is where Hawkwind sat trying to come up with a deep and meaningful name for their then new album). 

This rather beautifully flowing new album from Tijuana Hercules that me and the pigeons are listening to for the very first time today is maybe kind of like a string of thought or something that flows from some kind of musical string of consciousness, a mostly instrumental string of consciousness that sounds so beautifully effortless – words that kind of sneak in and out whe nthey;re needed, lyrics that could connect if they (really) wanted to and just engaging you and taking you along in just the right way without ever forcing you to come along.  Seventh of thirteen tracks Delta Alien is playing now, that kind of gives you a clue I guess? Could say things like “sparse” or “blues” or “Southern Swamp music” or many things along those lines but really none of that is quite right, I guess it does feel more New Orleans than Mexico now that I think about it, not that I’ve ever been to New Orleans or the desert or Barstow or to anywhere much – hell, I haven’t left Hackney since the lockdown locked us all down (been over a year since a live gig now, back before covid a week without a live band seemed impossible, almost a year since we had ot close the gallery). It is maybe more New Orleans now I thinks of it,  but then I really am trying to not think about it too much, too enjoyable to think about it too much, this just needs to flow, it is kind of like hanging out on the porch with a bottle of beer and just letting the good music flow, it doesn’t really sound like anything else by anyone else while it does sound kind of like lots of good things by lots of good people in a kind of healthy positive never obvious way – and there goes the broadband connection again, a year of lockdown and no galleries and bands bugging us about Bandcamp Friday and never for a second thinking we need to eat as well and we can’t even get a decent broadband service here in East London. 

This bit sounds something like Nik Turner at Stonehenge jamming with the Captain – Beefheart not Sensible, Stonehenge or wherever the festival had been chased off to by the forces with no numbers on their police uniforms that time, where was it?  Nik Turner does come to mind at times, it sounds like outdoor music or sitting on the porch music, it sounds like communal music, music that needs to be shared, music made by people who are enjoying each other’s playing, music that rolls along, rolls along in a sometimes  elegant way…. and it almost beyond lazy to even bring up ZZ Top or the Captain or Mr Turner – that’s the kind of lazy music journalism that would get me a job at the NME or one of those glossy prog rock magazines that like everything shipshape and pigeonhole fashion and this is nothing like ZZ Top or the mighty Miraculous Mule, well maybe La Grange but keep that to yourself. First couple of listens then, before the Broadband killed us. The album comes out in May, there’s a taster track up on the SkinGraft Records Bandcamp any moment now, we’ll review it “properly” next month, this was just a first couple of Thursday afternoon listens here in the swamps of Hackney with the pigeons and the paint throwing and well you know the score… 

Some background you say? “John played in Phantom 309 for a bit, in Atlanta so the cheat sheet press release tells us, with Mac McNeilly, future drummer of The Jesus Lizard) and Dirt, before settling in Chicago where he formed Mount Shasta, one of the founding SKiNGRAFT Records acts. Mount Shasta went on to release three albums and a collaborative LP with Japan’s Space Streakings before disbanding. Forbes then formed Tijuana Hercules, initially taking inspiration from obscure rock, blues, and gospel songs from the ’50s and ’60s. The band later gamma-radiated those threads into something altogether different in the labs of Forbes’s own Frogg Mountain Recording Studio, located squarely within Chicago’s historic meat-packing district” There is no indication that Norman Buntz knew anything about any of this or that the Hill was in Chicago. Where was the Hill? What did happen to Norman and Sid? Did it end up good for Sargent Lucy Bates and for Bobby? Did the Captain follow Joyce Davenport to LA? Not that Captain, the pizzaman, did she go to LA? Did anyone ever say where the Hill actually was? Should someone proofread this now? 

A spokesperson tells us there will be a taster track  from the new Tijuana Hercules album Mudslod and the Singles along with pre-order details and such up on the SkinGraft Bandcamp page this coming Bandcamp Friday, we’ll add the track here in a bit, meanwhile, here’s where you go check the details and see for yourselves, oh hang on…

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4 and a bit: jess joy – “thrashold” from jess joy off the album ‘PATREEARCHY’ out on Joyful Noise Recordings. Apparently a “post LA swamp witch surviving in l.A”. The whole album is down beneath the video that you sure will thank us for posting? up to you to be curious, we’re just posting up the signposts and the links here. This one came our way via Deerhoof, Deerhoof are always good for you…

and yes, a Bandcamp thing for Bandcamp Friday, that was the Jess Joy Bandcamp link you jsut went past…

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4 and a bit more: GS CV KW (with Greg Saunier, Casper Van De Velde, Karen Willems), we’ll leave you to go explore it, a Deerhoof and things….

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Previous Deerhoofness – ORGAN THING: We can’t let it pass without a mention, Deerhoof messing with Voivod via Ornette Coleman, Stockhausen and the Muppets…

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5: Thumpermonkey – Now there’s a band we covered lots back in the day, not so much these days I must admit, connections lost and all that, no relflection on their music, they still appear to be making fine fine music. Today Thumpermonkey tell us they have an exclusice version of piece of music only available on a new compilation celebrating eleven years of activity from highly respected London music promoters Chaos Theory. Actually there’s loads of good music on that compilation you ca nfind on, yes you guessed it, Bandcamp

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And we do need the summer and being outside and we don’t need another lost summer and a song from back there that was “produced by The Trudy and Cardiacs mastermind Tim Smith. Video Directed by Hally. The Director of Photography was Andy Whale and the Editor was Bill Hiles”, that’s Video Bill you know. Pop music is a good thing. Was the lost summer of love back in 2006?

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And that was that, another bus load of music during these strange locked-down times.  A big big thanks to anyone and everyone who has visited these pages, checked out the links, the music, the art, the exhibitions, the Cultivate on-line exhbitions, a big big thanks to all involved in the art shows or making the music we cover. And do let us just point out that everything here on these fractured Organ pages was done for free, all our time and effort and we just get so stupidly swamped in the week before this damn Bandcamp Friday, seems like every band and label in the world wants us to support something or other each month, you bands and labels are making a fortune out there every bandcamp Friday, “hey, tomorrow is Bandcamp Friday, we need to gold=plate our bathrtoom taps and we can’t charge you a fortune to get into or gigs anymore and can you help s out with a plug please?” Hey, we for overdue rent as well you know, while you sell two hundred millions albums every Bandcamp Friday maybe…. Hell, at least back in the day we’d get Manic Street Preachers albums in the post that we could go flog at Cheapo Cheapo down in Soho to pay the bills, all we get these days is a link. We haven’t got no box of money like Norm Buntz had stashed…

So if you do feel like making a small donation – We bring all this art, music and underculture to you for free, we really don’t want to clutter up our pages with annoying adverts, no one wants that, but it does take up a lot of time, hours and hours of time. If you should feel like supporting Organ/Cultivate (for it is one in the same) by making a small donation to help keep all this flowing that would be delightful, thank you.

And while we’re here, or maybe at the Hope and Anchor back in ther early 80s and a very very early Frankie gig. Are starting ot see venues announce gigs and dates and dare we thin kof such things or shal lwe jsut stay in forever more? Relax?

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Another five or so things in the next few day, well maybe, we’ll see?