Ah, Vangelis, where would we be without you? Surely we wouldn’t have danced with gods and demons over portentous clouds of a blinding blue, or roamed the streets of hallucinated eastern bazaars where weasely merchants display their strange wares in a most ramshackle manner, baroque pieces of analogical technology blessed with spells of a sublime glamour, we have waxed lyrical about the organic psychedelia and mystery of Earth, and ‘See you Later’s’ synthetic mesmerism, we have fallen in love with Sean Young under a technological rainbow and beheld, from the great wall of China slender ghosts and spirits flying as the sun sets, you have taken us to so many fantastic places, without you we wouldn’t be what we are, and thus we can forget with a smile of understanding the New Age excesses down which your glorious path eventually led.

Let us tread today the vast grounds of that glorious sonic cathedral which ‘Heaven and Hell’ is, and more specifically the first part of its first movement, ‘Bacchanalle’, mere mortals scurrying around the colossal feet of Gods and Demons as they rendezvous responding to the call of a horn blown by Heimdall, artifice of hands manipulating a synthesiser which strikes like a lightning bolt hurled by Zeus, or the riff with which Mahavishnu Orchestra shake our soul at the beginning of Birds of Fire, this is Vangelis at his most bombastic, the exhilaration of his movements bringing to mind images of abstract and blinding power that parallel the apocalyptic vistas of Magma’s mastodontic opus, no mean feat.

This is music larger than life the likes of which are few and far between these pedestrian days, this is music that flies past the mundane, oblivious to the sneers of those who dare not, aiming for the impossible and, for a second, attaining it. It is commendable to try this way, and we will love you for it, but when you have actually reached these peaks so often, illuminating our lives with music this propulsive and ecstatic, like a condensed ray of divine light breaking through black storm clouds, then we shall worship you.

There.

Vangelis- Heaven and Hell first Movement: Bacchanale

Most of which things would of course also apply to Werner Herzog and his grandiose comrade in arms Klaus Kinski, as well as many of those fiery german progressive bands of the 1970s which paraphrasing our brother Lord Nuneaton (happy birthday, see below!), got close, oh so close to the flame. I hadn’t listened to Popol Vuh until quite recently, and I have been rather blown away by the way in which their epic ruminations have influenced Earth’s slow motion codeine doom, and the spellbinding incantation of so many folk bands of these days, Six Organs of Admittance and Espers do come to mind most particularly.

In the beautifully contemplative ‘Wo bist du, der du uberwunden’ we find ourselves slowly enveloped by intertwining patterns of sound, stand in front of the luxuriant jungle clad in your shiny silver breastplate, modern music conquistador, and watch the jungle slowly grow around you, roots and creepers stretching and climbing like these intricate guitar melodies, life spreading gentle and strong until you find yourself surrounded by a canopy of green and the smell of things growing and dying and rotting, hearing ghostly voices from beyond, perhaps the spirits of Mayan swimmers at the bottom of a lake full of gold, more likely the echo of a dream.

Popol Vuh- Wo bist du, der du uberwunden

And let us bring today’s post to a close with a reference to kids whose music also smells of things green, fresh and lovely, this is High Places, who have kept going from strength to strength since they came to our attention a year or so ago.

In their new S/T album out on Thrill Jockey (or beloved Upset The Rhythm in the UK), they continue on a transit down quiet roads under the light of the moon and the attentive gaze of barn owls, to the rhythm of a music constructed organically, maybe with drum machines grown in corn fields, or sampling the precisely improvised movements of wood creatures burrowing food during for the autumn. In this sense there is a resemblance to the Animal Collective, but more serene, mellower, these are lullabies and spells to vanquish the nightmares and horrors in the darkness at the edge of your campsite, in the case of ‘The Tree with the lights in it’ a calypso made of dead leaves which comes across like Glass Candy’s Iko Iko tender and shy sister, very very lovely stuff.

High Places- The Tree with the Lights in it

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NICE CLOTHES

Finest purveyors of modern apparel Art in the Age of the Mechanical Reproduction have just put up for sale the oh so very nice Spring Break 08 tees that No Age have made specially for them. They are limited, and quite special so we advise you to run to their online store and grab one. Or perhaps try your luck with the contest they are organising, if the Gods smile upon you you might well end up with not only the t-shirt, but also Nouns on vinyl and Eraser on 7”. Of course you should already have those, but hey!

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GOOD SHOWS

We’ll be there on ecstatic celebration of the amaze of chaos and wonder that Medicine and Duty are (check out the new tunes in their myspace player, Jury Rigged is absolute killer) as well as Lord Nuneaton Savage’s birthday, don’t miss out!

The beautiful guitar melody with which Mirror Mirror’s ‘New Horizons’ begins contains in the revolution of its tones the complete structure of what is to come, like a strange flower slowly unfolding its crimson petals to reveal a wonderful piece of psyche-folk that seduces us with the scent of the United States of America, Syd Barrett era Pink Floyd and early Brian Eno balladry, stuff that never fails to tie our hearts into a knot reminding us of Liars at their sweetest, or the esoteric chrysalis of an enigma metamorphosing into a butterfly fluttering in the edge of our consciousness wondering what to become next, something pretty and pregnant with possibilities and mystery, a metaphor & a spell blown off the face of reality with a puff of smoke as the song finishes, all we are left with is metaphors skirting in the periphery of the weird and lovely transparent radiation it creates, why bother with words, just press play again.

Mirror Mirror- New Horizons

Mirror Mirror features lovely Ryan from most excellent Telepathe, who one of the 20JFg types had the pleasure to meet during the Great Escape festival. Get their 7″ on Half Machine Records from the 16th of June.

Upset the Rhythm is one of the record labels we love and respect the most, what with the impeccable stream of fancy coloured vinyl releases of their glorious catalogue, always delivered with the taste and attention to detail which love entails, what with the excellent shows they keep putting out so that the foggy streets of the megalopolis which raises satanic to our North might remain exciting in spite of the dubious voting preferences of its inhabitants. Anyhow, Upset the Rhythm have just released the Vision’s the First/Namer 7” by High Places, a band that have enthralled us with their swirling spirals of ornate lo-fi folk since one Mr. James Nascent brought them to our attention some time ago.

In ‘Vision’s the First’ they keep it astounding with a dizzying lullaby that rocks syncopated with the rhythm that Timbaland would have come up with if he had decided to leave all the bling behind and spend a couple of years meditating in a hut hidden by the shores of Walden Pond, gathering nuts, exchanging significant glances with blackbirds of impervious gaze, and generally living his life according to the cycles of nature, carefully attuning the mechanisms of a dusty 4-track recorder so as to pick the crystalline voices announcing the arrival of the spring, voices which sparkle beautiful to deliver a message of warning and disobedience.

High Places- Vision’s The First

You know we heart Child Pornography, we’d love to have them play at 13 Monsters: Child Pornography at 13 Monsters, oh yes, they are one of the few bands out there who manage to convey the careless feral intensity of thee original blitzkrieg no wave massive through brief outbursts of shambolic synth damaged dada you can chew bubblegum to, and kick some ass to, too, they sound like the fucked up spawn of Suicide and Stereo Total, after a few listens their music digs its claws in your soft brain like the slimey alien manta rays in Robert Heinlein’s The Puppet Masters turning you into some weird tourette pogo bitch, which is a job that apparently pays quite well.

Their new album, ‘She’s Got Legs’ has been released by our beloved Deathbomb Arc and you should totally get it. I don’t know where I put the box so I can’t find the actual name of the tune below. Oh dear. It’s number 12.

Child Pornography- Track 12

We can’t say that much about Teengirl Fantasy save that they are two students at Oberlin College, Ohio, called Logan and Nick. They make ‘many teengirl fantasies and electronic music’ which is mighty fine by us, when we saw that party in the streets gif in their myspace and listened to their tunes we said YES YES YES and clapped our hands in delirium, Portofino sounds like Lil’ Jon hanging out with Silverlink and Harmonia in a pastel Parisian boulevard, smoking cigarettes and everything under a swarm of neon eyed doves shitting caramel popcorn, which is mighty fine by them, because they are frigging sweet and that’s the way they roll, the song finishes and we all walk into the sunshine with a smile in our somehow more colourful faces.

Teengirl Fantasy- Portofino

Their angelfire website is fucking awesome too, check them out, I think they are going to be totally massive and we’ll be writing them again soon hopefully.

Gentle Friendly’s astounding music crashes through the door of that log cabin where you were on holidays reading old school Fantastic Four comic books and listening to 90s tapes trying to put yourself together after your last romantic disaster, suddenly they are in the place like some bear with wise eyes coming out of the shadows of the unexpected stomping with the fierce joy of Parts and Labor, it slumbers mighty into your kitchen and grabs all the sweets in the bowl, turns around, gobbles the sweets and walks away leaving a whiff of the Animal Collective in the air, all of this before you have even time to say ‘yo Bear-’.

You have no more sweets now, but you are feeling better and ready for another romantic disaster, say thank you Gentle Friendly, best UK band I’ve heard (with Fuckbuttons and Copycats) in a very long time.

Gentle Friendly- Ride Symbols

James Nascent (go and watch him DJ at Slash on Friday the 15th, Hate Crime are playing as well for the total win) told you about High Places in this humble pooter den some time ago, well, Brenmar off the mighty These are Powers has made a very very special remix of one of their tunes, Golden, and it fucking rocks, it sounds like the spirit of OOIOO turned into psychedelic chewing gum which M.I.A. unwraps from its silvery package, stretching it pink and sweet to connect the different contraptions of a playground where weird children engage in harsh guerilla training for secret operations of mischief, seen from above it looks like a white magic pentagram inside which a technological fairy shall be materialising at some point soon, we await enraptured.

High Places- Golden (Brenmar Remix)

Go to Brenmar’s page to listen to other awesome remixes he has done, the Clipd Beaks one is spanking too!

:( :( :(

We finish this post on a sad note, because BANG! in Madrid is closing today, this excellent record/book/comic book shop run by Manuel, which 20JFG never failed to call upon its visits to the Spanish capital shall be no more after tomorrow, at least physically. BANG! will be reincarnated into a fully fledged virtual store opening soon, we shall keep you posted about this. If you are around Madrid, pop around and spend some hard earned Euros on thee good shit, and give Manuel a big hug from us.

Remember kids, support your independent shop! for every record you buy God creates a kitten.

My last post…an open love letter to the West coast lo-fi-trash-about-party bands that I owe a large portion of my record collection to. The ones they wrote about in the NME last week. That was weird…. in a good way. I never expected to read about Silver Daggers or Abe Vigoda in the relentlessly bollocks rag that is NME. But I’m certainly not too bigger a snob to not see that it was a good thing.

In this and in contrast a post about the Esoterica from the East coast. From the view over here there does seem to be some kind of split. I can see it in my records and you can see it with the touring bands that come over here. West = jump up and down party, East = sit down, sway back and forth party. Of course there are exceptions but you can’t deny that there is something in it. I’m sure someone could tell me exactly why it is. Probably something like a common reaction to the shared surroundings of the people involved in making the music. The west’s sunny/clean living Vs the East’s bleak/polluted city living. Whatever it is or isn’t, it works. So what? Yeah so what? Who cares?

Right now it’s the East that’s doing it for me. Next week it’ll be something else I’m sure. It has to be. What would I write about?

One such band that I’m really digging at the moment is High Places.

Bubble beats and finger snaps suspended in woozy-drunk violin plucks and backwards cello and I love some echo vocals too. I’m a total sucker for girls singing with the reverb and echo turned up. Every time.

High Places- Golden

And from their amazing 7′ out on Ancient Almanac. This is what pop music sounds like in my dreams. The dream I have where I’m dancing with a giant stuffed toy bear, in the woods, with cuckoos calling the dawn in and woodpeckers hollowing out trees and it just started pissing it down. And that pretty girl with the ghostly voice is there again. Her voice ahhhh. I wake up. Morning glory.

High Places- Head Spins

Another band albeit a one man band that gets me all dreamy and makes me wanna turn it up real loud and dance and I would if only I wasn’t in my parents downstairs broom cupboard come office room and it wasn’t bloody 2am (damn the night, damn these sore eyes) is… Soft Circle. A solo project from ex-Black Dice and one time Lightning Bolt dude Hisham Akira Bharoocha. The not quite there vocal chants are in effect, the beats are tumbling tribal techno and go right to that place at the base of your spine that makes you wanna do the loose jerk or the flunky junk. At the same time (literally) he’s playing the violin on the guitar or doing the funky thing on the bass with what sounds like some serious thumb jamming. On another its heavy on the cymbals and the guitar calls to prayer and he’s there in the Minaret and the hairs are standing, quivering, dancing on the back of my neck. You’re gonna love this.

Soft Circle- Shimmer

Soft Circle- Moon Oar Sunrise

It was really hard to just pick three bands to write about. I dunno why I decided on three. It was a self imposed limitation I’m regretting as there are bloody loads of bands that I’m getting very enthusiastic about at the moment. But for now there is three and there is finally These Are Powers featuring ex members of Knife Skills and Liars. That Pavlovian drooling at the mention of those two names is understandable and justified. Their very excellent 7′ out on Elsie & Jack recordings is still available so get your hands on it quick quick. They make harsher, darker, more metallic noises with a banshee as front-woman, chainsaw bass and guitar turned electric glockenspiel, the drums skittle on the rims and big boom on the kick and the toms go bam dala bam dala. Sexy, very sexy.

These Are Powers- Makes Visible

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These Are Powers- Funereal Xylophone