Oh the endless parade, where were we? Asked that the time before last time, do we need a new editorial yet? An endless parade indeed, Monday morning and the inbox is full of messages, pleas, can you listen to my new song? Have you listened to our album yet? We could really do with a review, and who needs a damn editorial? Let the actual music do the actual walking and the actual talking. Exact same thing again, another five (or so) slices of musical things that have passed our way recently and however you like to slice it and of course it was the price of lemons and here comes the intro, Don’t be flippant she said, how could it ever be flippant? I can’t remember why she said that now, in one ear, out the other, we have a bad attitude here apparently, no respect for those who work in the music industry, well no poop Sherlock, have you only just worked that one out? We’ve been showing zero respect since the last century, zero flips given…

Five? There’s something rather compelling about five. Cross-pollination? Five more? Is there another way? A better way? A cure for pulling flying rabbits out of the clouds? Is there a rhyme? Is there a reason? Was there ever a reason? What do reasons make? Five more? Snake oil? Everything must go and no, we never do and the proof of the pudding is in that proof reading. When we started this thing, oh never mind, it doesn’t matter why we started this damn thing and like we asked last time, does anyone bother reading the editorial? Does anyone ever actually look down the rabbit hole or is it all just method acting? We do really try to listen to everything that comes in, we do it so you don’t have to, we are very (very) very very picky about what we actually post on these fractured pages or about what gets played on the radio or indeed what we hang in a gallery. Cut to the chase, never mind the editorial, skip this bit, there’s loads of music further down the page, well five or so pieces of music that have come our way in the last few days and what’s Wordsworth? Just the basic facts and links and those sounds (and visuals), that’s surely all you need from us?

Here we go, five more slices of music that have recently come our way, this time we start somewhere in Washington

1: J.R.C.G – Now this is a good place to sart on a hot Monday morning after the weekend before, it has all been about Switch The Other in the last few days, no time for music, well besides that Webcore song. Today is catch up day, contact and switch the other (or maybe to switch the other). This is a piece from the Washington band’s just released album Grim Iconic​.​.​.​(​Sadistic Mantra), find it on Bandcamp. Tacoma, Washington actually…

2: 40 Watt Sun – Astoria is the second song to be released from 40 Watt Sun’s newly-announced fourth studio album, Little Weight (the follow-up to 2022’s Perfect Light), and is streaming everywhere now. Little Weight will be released on September 6th 2024, digitally via Cappio Records and on physical formats through Patrick Walker’s own label, Fisher’s Folly.

3: House of Protection and a thing called Pulling Teeth, and well, this sounds like a lot of things I can’t remember from the days when Suzie was a swimmer and Organ Radio was a series of things, when One Minute Silence had a following that pulled apart venues and Cynical Smile were never cynical and always smiled that and a bit of Beck before he lost it and there were parking violations and it was maggots more than pulling teath. I saw a Korn poster yesterday from the top deck of a 388 bus back to Hackney, are they still going? Has any band ever split up? Are this band massive news? They sound generically good, a whole lot of mix and things, they’re probably missing a bit of x factor, that finger print that makes thier sound all thier own rather than jsut sounding like a pile of other bands all mixed together. but hey, they sound good and that is an impressive video and House of Portection are fresh while the others are fast fading memories…

House of Portection have announced their anticipated debut EP Galore, out on September 13th on Red Bull Records. Their first ever UK show happens at The Underworld, London on October 15th

The press release tells us that “House of Protection, the new project from Aric Improta (drums) and Stephen Harrison (guitar), today announced their debut EP Galore, out on Red Bull Records on September 13th. Alongside the news, they dropped their fourth adrenaline-inducing single, Pulling Teeth with an official video shot inside the legendary “Well of Death”. Dating back to April, the band travelled to Ahmedabad, India to capture a performance in the country’s infamous carnival sideshow. Aric and Stephen played at the bottom of a wooden pit while stunt drivers defied gravity and rode vertically around the well as locals watched from above. Known for taking creative risks and producing boundary-pushing visuals, Pulling Teeth is yet another daring feat that proves no one does it quite like House of Protection.

On the making of the video, the band shares, “The first day we met the full Red Bull Records team, we asked if they would be down to fly us to India to perform in a “Well of Death” – an idea we’d been sitting on for years. To our surprise, they were immediately on board, so we knew we just needed the right song. After two sessions of writing with Jordan, we finished “Pulling Teeth” and felt it was the perfect track to score the concept. I think we always perform best when the environment is a bit chaotic, so we were excited to see what would happen.

After 30 hours of travel, including cancelled flights, flooding in our connecting airport (Dubai), a cancelled location (due to a political rally), and an additional 16 hours of driving round-trip through the desert to the backup location… we finally found ourselves in the Well of Death. We did nine takes with a live audience, all while our director was throwing up between shots and one of the motorcycles died in the middle of the performance. That said, we came out with something better than we ever could have expected and had an incredible team on the ground that made it all possible.”

Beyond their visuals, a pillar of the band’s sound can be defined by this “high risk, high reward” mentality. As the duo continues to explore their artistry as a newly formed outfit, they’ve stretched, bent, and re-imagined their sonics with each release – from the screaming fury of ‘It’s Supposed To Hurt,’ to the drum & bass dream sequence on ‘Being One’. For fans of metal mosh pits and underground raves alike, they’ve maintained a cohesive chaos in their versatility that comes full circle on the six-track breakout EP, GALORE. Producer Jordan Fish perfectly balances the raw instrumentation with crisp production to make room for Aric and Stephen’s vocals to thrive for the first time.

You can pre-order the Galore EP here. Meanwhile, thrill seekers looking for a cathartic release can catch House of Protection’s debut live shows on September 24 at 1720 in Los Angeles and October 15 at Underworld in London. Tickets are available here”. 

We’ll resist asking about the carbon footprint of that video or the Red Bull hype machine that I guess we just got sucked into… 

And we’ll try not to shout larger larger larger, do kind of like them, peobably for noe more than 15 minutes or megabites or whatever unit of time Andy would refer to now… More on their Website if you want…

4: Ingebrigt Håker Flaten’s (Exit) Knarr and something called Free The Jazz that’s from and album called Breezy released on September 27th, 2024. “Hi everyone – Today we’re announcing the new LP/CD from incredible bassist and composer Ingebrigt Håker Flaten’s (Exit) Knarr project on his Sonic Transmissions label” Do rather like it, rather love the video…

“A powerhouse who’s played on over 200 albums, and has collaborated with fellow legends like Joe McPhee, Jeff Parker, Ken Vandermark, Peter Brötzmann, etc — Ingebrigt is also the bassist of The Thing, who as a trio worked variously with Jim O’Rourke, Thurston Moore, & Neneh Cherry. Given all of this, he probably doesn’t need an intro for most of you reading this…” so says the press release…

Quote from Juliane Schütz who made the video and does the design for Sonic Transmissions: When first hearing “Free the Jazz”, millions of images representing all the notes that were being played flooded my brain, and the next step was trying to catch and sort them… somehow. There are just so many details in the music, such a huge story to be told… And, as it usually goes, a small idea suddenly grew into an army of sub- and sub-sub ideas, which then led me to the overwhelming task of instinctively picking the one (or in this case the two) that felt best for the visual representation of the music. And then the actual exploration and implementation process began. I was lucky enough to accidentally find a miniature microscope a few days prior and decided to examine its qualities on the go. So while pointing a camera at the magnification surface filming dust particles and ink and other secret ingredients, I was sitting on my computer creating images of jazz musicians (who coincidentally resemble the actual musicians on the track) with the help of AI. Stitching everything together manually was the most challenging but also the most entertaining, as this is an integral part of my creative approach. I am a huge fan of both the digital and the analog realm, and merging them into a new one-ness is an unusually rewarding and inspiring process. Paired with a voluptuous extra layer of music that sparkles with a boisterous joie de vivre, this video may or may not be the self-contained three course menu on your daily watchlist. Bon appétit!

Here’s some more for those of us who don’t know. “This new album from his (Exit) Knarr project, Breezy, is titled in tribute to Jaimie Branch of course (the two collaborated often and knew one another in Chicago), and the album is an appropriately raucous and celebratory one. Mette Rasmussen’s solo on ‘Free the Jazz’ blows the roof off, and the band navigates deftly the territory between styles we associate with European free improv, Chicago free jazz, and American spiritual jazz – creating a kind of ecstatic whirl of sound.

The album has its bruising workouts for sure, but there are also moments of airy light beauty as on the middle section of “Hilma” or the early parts of the title track. It’s a beautiful, diverse set of music from a crucial figure in the jazz and improvisation world. Not to be missed!”

Here’s the Bandcamp

5: Deadletter, they are very current, pop culture Connoisseurs you might (or might not) say, still can’t decide if they’re annoying or execellent or jsut a annoyingly excellent and have they got all the peices of thier jigsaw and are those last pieces ever to be found? Are we still on the fence? Is this one an important part of that jigsaw, if there to be poetic justice? They are obtuse, obtuse is good…

Deadletter are today, so the press releases tells us, sharing More Heat!, the latest new single to be taken from the band’s forthcoming debut album Hysterical Strength (13th September via SO Recordings).  “More Heat! encompasses all of the things that Deadletter do best. Welding elastic basslines, scratchy and discordant guitars, and rasping saxophones, More Heat! makes for an addictive, off-kilter examination of self-deception” so we’re told, well pack up all my belongings in cardboard and well, it is even hotter on this Tuesday than it was on Monday and we’ve seen too many cartoons

Lead singer Zac Lawrence says about the song: “More Heat! is about the way in which someone may attempt to convince themself they are feeling enjoyment from something that in reality is causing them a disturbance. Whether it be to preserve face, or simply through an inability to swallow their pride and accept that a spell of discomfort as a result of change far outweighs continuously doing something from which there is no contentment to be found.”

Are they art bruts? Will they set the place alight and head straight for the canal? Are they too clever for their own good? Does it burn? Shall we put the kettle on…

24 days until the Art Car Boot Fair… ORGAN PREVIEW: Always a highlight of the London art year, the date for the 2024 Art Car Boot Fair has now been announced…