ARCart releases in digital format

Several years ago I updated a page on the ARCart website announcing that mp3 versions of all the ARC and ARC(ANE) releases would be made available. Some years later I removed that text as I realised I'd still not got round to fulfilling that promise and, like my vague ideas of ever making music again, might never actually get round to it. Well, at least on one of these points I've finally managed to make good on my word.

Over the coming weeks I'll be making available digital versions of every ARCart vinyl release. The intention at this stage is to make them available in two formats – 320kbps mp3 files, and FLAC files. Both are compressed from the same WAV files, which were created from the original digital recordings made on Digital Audio Tape and in some cases, CDr. The WAV files will also be available to anyone who really needs them but I won’t be putting them online in the same way. Those will be available on an individual track basis to people who specifically request those tracks from me.

The files will be posted in the order they were originally released. I expect I'll write a bit about each one as well, giving some background information as well as sharing my opinions on how I feel about them all these years later.

I don't know if anyone is really that interested at this stage, but it will at least serve the purpose of creating an archive that will sit alongside the bits of vinyl still floating around in various collections, bargain bins and landfill sites. And it will give me something to write about on this ever-sluggish blog.

Oh, and the files will be made available for free at this stage, although that's for personal use only. Anyone who happens to want to use any of it for commercial reasons should get in touch.

let's get this party slanted (spannered.org)

I did a mix for spannered.org. It's sort of ambient-ish in a downlifting, throw-ya-hands-in-the-meatgrinder kind of way.


Tracklist

Lustmord - 'Primordial Atom' (Soleilmoon)
Simon Fisher Turner - 'Hymn For Thatcher' (Mute)
Brunnen - 'Tippoo's Tiger' (Beta-lactam Ring)
Chris Carter - 'Chakutut' (Conspiracy International)
Autechre - 'Paralel Suns' (Warp)
Column One - 'Re-Worked Transmission' (Stateart)
Black Sun Productions - 'The Skunk' (Old Europa Café)
Max Waters - 'Stars And Scribble' (Blasé)
Andrew Liles - 'Auto Manipulator - 4th Degree (A Lesson To Be Learnt)' (Lumberton Trading Company)
Black Dice - 'Endless Happiness' (DFA)
The Jackofficers - 'An Hawaiian Christmas Song' (Naked Brain)
Aerial Service Area - 'ETI Encoding' (Fax +49-69/450464)
Pemalas - 'Tones' (Experimental Seafood)
The Silverman - 'Nature Of Illusion' (Beta-lactam Ring)
Danny Kreutzfeldt - 'Chasm' (Databloem)
Satori - 'Paralysis' (Dogma Chase)
Sun Electric - 'Newambi' (R&S)
James Plotkin, Mick Harris - 'Collapse' (Asphodel)

You can download the mp3 or stream the mix from here.

Completed artwork commentary

Some months ago I blogged about a commentary I wrote about the centre label art on ARCart releases.

At that time I was missing a finished copy of ARC04 but I found one this week. I've added it to the commentary and it can be seen on page two of the ARCart label art gallery accessible from here.

an old set recorded in Brno, 2004

A recording of my set at the Foundation party in Brno, Czech Republic in 2004. In two hectic, messy, high tempo sections. I think a few minutes must have been cut off in the middle as it jumps about 20bpm between the end of the first and the start of the second. Sound quality isn't brilliant as the decks were feeding back a bit in places. Also the ending is cut off somewhat abruptly.

Here's the tracklist.

Part 1

Susumu Yokota - 'Fairy Link' (Leaf)
Lift Syndrome - '13' (Rodz-Konez)
The Advent - 'The Living' (Internal)
Caustic Window - 'Astroblaster' (Rephlex)
Cybordelics - 'Adventures Of Dama' (Harthouse)
Universal Indicator - 'Green' (Rephlex)
Like A Tim - 'Space Punk' (DJAX)
Universal Indicator - 'Green' (Rephlex)
Mescalinum United - 'We Have Arrived (Aphex Twin TTQ Mix)' (R&S)
Like A Tim - 'Dangle' (DJAX)
Unknown Structure - 'Repitcher' (Sapho)
DJ Rush - 'Smooth Ride' (Trax)
Drexciya - 'Digital Tsunami' (Tresor)
Fast - 'Exit Wound' (Reverb)
Autechre - 'Djarum' (Warp)
Nick Rapaccioli - 'Skima' (Vertical Form)
Drexciya - 'Aqua Jujidsu' (Submerge)
Storm - 'Carbon Fury' (DJAX)
Richard Bartz - 'Mad Butcher' (Disko B)
Gas - 'Pop' (Mille Plateaux)
D'Arcangelo - 'Diagram VII (80's Mix)' (Rephlex)


Part 2

The Vision - 'K-Force' (Tresor)
Clementine - 'Breaking Point' (DJAX)
Bola - 'Horizophon' (Skam)
Ed Rush - 'The Raven' (FFRR)
The Black Dog - 'Chesh' (Warp)
Monolake - 'Frost' (Monolake / Imbalance Computer Music)
Ceephax Acid Crew - 'Seasick Acid' (Breakin')
Audiosex - 'untitled' (Aural Audio)
Vinyl Countdown - 'Erasure' (Edge)
C-Tank - 'Hardtrance Over Flow' (Overdrive)
Like A Tim - 'Wildstyle' (DJAX)
Andre Holland - 'Unabomber' (UR)
Gas - 'Pop' (Mille Plateaux)
Caustic Window - 'The Garden Of Linmiri' (Rephlex)
The Subjects v. Jeff Mills - 'Beyond...' (ULR One)
Caustic Window - 'Joyrex J4' (Rephlex)
DJ Funk - 'Booty Perk U Later' (Projex)
Bitstream - 'Speed Of Light' (Pylon)

zip file containing both parts is here.

Chris Watson on BBC Radio 4

Chris Watson, who I wrote about a few posts ago, presented an excellent short program on BBC Radio 4 yesterday about recording the various sounds of water. It's only 15 minutes long so go and check it out. There's a section where he plays recordings made of an Icelandic glacier which is quite amazing and similar to the one of the sea ice freezing which he played at the National Gallery event.

Listen to the program on the BBC site here (6 days left to listen).

Nancy Elizabeth

The wonderful Nancy Elizabeth played in London yesterday at The Borderline. It was the third time I've seen her perform live this year, and each occasion has been brilliant.

The previous two performances had focused on her newer material, released at the end of September on the album "Wrought Iron". On this latest occasion she played a mixed set of songs from both this and her first album "Battle And Victory". Happily she also had her harp with her. At previous gigs she'd used just acoustic guitar and piano, mentioning having fallen out of love with the harp which featured heavily on her first album, so it was good to see she's got the bug back. I welled right up when she first used it last night to play "I'm Like The Paper".

I can't recall ever hearing a singer whose live performances are so perfect. Her voice never wavers. She's also without doubt the most endearing performer I've ever witnessed. She always talks to the audience between each song and is delightfully funny and charming. Odd then that on this occasion quite a few people who had presumably paid to get in thought it somehow appropriate to talk through the performance.

The final song of the main section of her set was "The Remote Past", and she invited the audience to participate by humming a part along with her. It took a few attempts for people to get properly into it, but in the end it worked very well, pulling the audience right in and creating a very sweet atmosphere that definitely increased everyone's pleasure levels. That's the first time I've seen her getting the audience properly involved in the music itself, rather than through the spoken interaction she encourages between songs.

Here's a video made for one of the tracks on her new album. I recommend watching it full screen:

Nancy Elizabeth - Feet Of Courage from Leaf Label

Johnny Mad Dog

Last night I went to a local cinema to watch a film called Johnny Mad Dog. It's an extremely harrowing depiction of civil war in an unspecified African country (although I believe it was filmed in Liberia where such horrors have taken place, and which still happen every day in the Democratic Republic of the Congo) and focuses on the role of child soldiers used by both government and rebel forces.

The film is in a local dialect of the official Liberian language of English but which few in the UK could ever understand without subtitles.

The opening scene portrays the horrific abduction ritual which is often described in the media, whereby a village is raided, and children are forced to kill their own parents before being dragged away to be drugged and brainwashed into taking up arms in a war they can't hope to understand and will probably not survive.

Johnny Mad Dog is the name of one of the characters who appears throughout the film, a late teen who has been fighting for as long as he can remember. Although I would hesitate to call him the protagonist, he does appear to be the individual whose thoughts we get closest to. But he is just one of many boys forced into a situation where they know nothing but war, they kill and rape without hesitation, and they no longer remember their own names or where they came from.

From beginning to end, this film is nothing but brutal. There are no tender moments, and as far as I could detect, no moral messages. Just "this is it. death, craziness and mayhem without respite". Aside from a young girl's attempts to save her father, the closest we get to seeing a display of affection would be more accurately described as rape, albeit that the young victim is already so traumatised as to be unable to fully understand what's happening to her. No resistance is offered, and in fact it seems almost to be welcome, but I wondered if the fact that this scene took place on a beach with both parties covered in sand was suggesting a painful undertone for all involved.

It ends ambiguously, with the war supposedly over but little having changed except the uniforms of those doing the brutalising. Perhaps that's the message.