MVD Robert Mugge’s film A Joyful Noise is like stepping into a time machine. He has captured a unique insight into a particularly mystical bubble of 1980s African American counter-culture. Although, thinking about it, our main protagonist Mr Mystery, AKA Sun Ra, might not be too interested in limiting himself to any earth-based ethnicity.
Harry Wheeler
9 posts
LM Duplication This music is presented to the world via the extremely productive LM Duplication label, the LM standing for ‘Living Music’, which couldn’t be a more appropriate association for the music recorded here. Life is full of grit and dirt, no matter how much we in the west try and get away from and sanitise it. Some of this mess is captured on the album with tracks […]
New Wave Films Irish film maker Pat Collins, largely known for his documentary work, has successfully merged genres here. The star, Eoghan Mac Giolla Bhride plays a sound recordist of the same name and it just so happens that Bhride is a sound recordist in real life. Seemingly not a natural actor, the scenes have this extended reality to them, which transcend the boundaries of fictional cinema and […]
LM Dupli-cation Bahriye Ciftetellisi is the fourth release on Jeremy Barnes and Heather Trost(AKA A Hawk and a Hacksaw)’s new label LM Duplication, which is proving to be prolific considering it only gave birth to its first release a year ago. From the moment the percussion kicks in on the first track after Cüneyt Sepetçi’s clarinet solo “Bahriye Cif Ciftetellisi” proves to be an aggressive assault to the […]
Second Language Every now and then, when I need to kill sometime on the internet, I have a checklist of web sites that I’ll go through and have a peek at. The website of Cécile Schott’s project Colleen is one of them. From my sporadic infrequent checks I’d noticed that it had been notably gathering cobwebs from the web spiders (bad cyber-spiel joke). Then a post appeared in August 2011 that […]
Thrill Jockey The Sprummer has burst out in full bloom here in Blighty. That’s no typo. Spring forgot to happen this year, so we’re enjoying blossom trees and warmer evenings. Saying that, we had a hailstorm yesterday. Never the less we’re enjoying abundant daffodils growing in our parks and meadows. My Garden State is the perfect music to listen to whilst riding a bike and looking around at […]
Bo’Weavil Here we have a collection of British folk song interpretations by guitarist Chris Joynes and singer Stephanie Hladowski. Without even listening to this album, one can’t help recall the inspiring union of singer Shirley Collins and guitarist Davey Graham on the 1964 album Folk Roots, New Routes – a regular spinner in my car’s CD player. From listening to The Wild Wild Berry, I find my deconstructive […]
Thrill Jockey I’d waited for an opportunity to listen to this album where I’d have some uninterrupted space and so the epic Megabus journey that started at 03:00 in the morning was the perfect place. I got on the bus, walked to the top of the stairs, plonked my self down at the back and was greeted by a wonderful centred perspective view of empty bus seats and […]
Harry Wheeler of Harmonic Rooms spends a week in November in the company of some of the current greats of the acoustic guitar, and reflects on the enduring legacy of John Fahey and Robbie Basho. Last November, I spent over a week in and out of the recording studio with my trusty video camera and two explorative guitarists, Cam Deas and Steffen Basho-Junghans. Part of the appeal of […]