Jaunted Haunts Press

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Well hello…

Crikey, i haven’t posted on anything on here for what feels like forever!  I do have half an excuse though, as i’ve been lucky enough to go on a jaunt to Taiwan to visit some family. As it happens, during the the two weeks that i was away, some of the most amazing gigs i’ve ever had to miss took place in Cape Town, such as the Sticky Antlers, Toumani Diabate and Guy Buttery’s album launch at the Newspace Theater (whom, incidentally, i did an interview with just before i left, which you can read here). Oh well, them’s the breaks, however i can definitely say that Taiwan was an amazing experience, perhaps even worth missing all those gigs for.

The night before boarding my flight to Hong Kong i had the great privilege to share the bill with some old friends like Us Kids Know, Kidofdoom and Joao Orecchia  at a great show held on a rooftop 19 floors up in the Johannesburg CBD.

As it happens, Joao Orecchia is just about to put his new album, Hands and Feet, out on the Portland, Oregon-based Other Electricities label, which is really gratifying as Joao and i had a few occasions over the last couple of years to compare notes on our respective album’s progress and it’s great to hear it finally done. Joao’s music reminds me a lot of  The Notwist, Four Tet and Mùm, with an elegaic minor-key character playfully subverted with minutely detailed digital trickery. Ask anyone who’s seen him, watching him pull these songs off live is quite an experience.

Joao Orecchia – Midnight Serenade

Joao Orecchia on FB

I also got to do an album swap with Givan Lötz, whose music blew me away with its understated gorgeousness. This album, Easy Now, is ridiculously limited edition (i’m talking 20 copies) but hopefully there’s much more to come from him. His music reminds me a lot of Six Organs of Admittance at times, and Elliot Smith at others,  with the occasional mindbending drone interlude . On the whole, however, what i love about his music is that it’s unconcerned with trying too hard to impress, winning you over with its sedate and monumental grace instead. Check the song ‘Soon’ out, in my opinion the highlight of the album and a worthy namesake of My Bloody Valentine’s swoonfest. 

Givan Lötz – Soon

Givan Lötz on FB

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Sticky Antlers in CT

The Sticky Antlers, a great band from Pretoria whose first album i wrote about here , and which has subsequently been picked up for distribution by One F Music, are finally coming to play in Cape Town for the first time ever.

As my cursed luck would have it, i’m away for the entire time they’re here, but you can catch them at any one of the following gigs:

Fri 25 Sept @ EVOL
Wed 30 Sept @ Assembly (with Eat This, Horse)
Fri 2 Oct @ EVOL
Sat 3 Oct @ Corner Bar (Durbanville)

I should also mention that the Sticky Antlers’ KRNGY logo have offered a fine new album from Mfeka Mahlangu’s ‘Immaculate Afterbirth’ project entitled ‘Fruhjahrslorchel’ for download – the first few tracks of which consist of haunting drones peppered with ominous percussion, before the beautifully atmospheric 18 minute title track provides some solace. Check the album out here:

Immaculate Afterbirth – “Fruhjahrslorchel”

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Blackmilk – Kimono Dragon

I know i’ve posted this before (on a blog that has since dissolved into the ether, mind you), but i feel any South African music enthusiast has the constitutional right to be exposed to this magnificent song, and i am preparing this house for some new guests, in a manner of speaking.

Blackmilk is a band that consisted of Ramon Galvan on vocals, synth and toys, Ian Watson (Lithium,  Enkeleen, Throatball) on guitar, Paul Opie (Lithium, Moranga, Action Blueprint) on bass and Damian Staz on drums. They released one full length album, The Summer Eye (which you can still get! HERE!).

Kimono Dragon was a single that was self-released after the band had split up. The video is by Jacqui Stecher and Jesse Breytenbach.

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Back online.

You may have noticed that this site has been offline since Sunday – this has been due to a problem encountered in upgrading the Wordpress platfom to the latest version (and stupidly not backing up the previous installation, because, what could possibly go wrong?) – anyway, it’s back online thanks in no small part to the expertees of Niel Thiart, (the same guy who built the booking system for the Newspace launch – Niel, you’re my hero) who managed to fix it up. As you can see, the design elements have fallen casualty to this SNAFU, which i think is as good an incentive for a pending redesign as any (although i must say that this Fauna theme is doing quite nicely). At least i didn’t delete the entire database this time.

In any case: since I last posted on this site, I have been working hard towards gearing myself for doing screenprints more regularly, and will be starting a separate blog around that fairly soon. I was also asked to write a review of The Wild Eyes’ gig two weeks ago, for Mahala.co.za, which you can read here.

I also did some rough demos of some new acoustic pieces, one of which you can hear here.

Ramon Galvan has also started his own blogspot, on which he posts lyrics from the ‘Outer Tumbolia’ and other interesting pieces about his processes. Be sure to check that out here.

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From the Vaults: Skrummasjien

Skrummasjien was a two-piece noise rock outfit consisting of myself on guitar and Mark Van Niekerk on drums. The central idea was to fixate on an almost comical heaviosity based on power chord riffs, thrash metal drumming and feedback, coupled with noise loops.We liked the idea of jumping from one idea to another in a hyperactive way, so the tracks were often 10 minute sections that consisted of 5 or 6 ideas in quick succession. We gigged VERY occasionally, opening for Throatball (Ian Watson’s awesome thrash metal band) on one occasion and Action Blueprint (Paul Opie’s project after Blackmilk), and then another one in the back room at EVOL, which we played in the middle of the room with no PA.

We recorded our jams pretty diligently, though often on very rudimentary equipment, and there is hours of this stuff – not all listenable. During a recent visit to Mark he drew my attention to this section that was better than i remember.

Skrummasjien – Mmmurks

Another ‘track’ that i personally love, even though the clipping on it is positively caustic, is one we’ve titled ‘Kepler (Vessels of God)’

Skrummasjien – Kepler (Vessels of God)

We also compiled a cd-r of live and practice recordings that was kind of the inaugural release on One Minute Trolley Dash (which i still have plenty of copies of by the way)

In the time of shitgaze getting serious cred, this stuff doesnt sound THAT preposterous – but be warned, it is lo-fi city we’re talking here!

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Two Great Guitar Albums pt.2: Andre v Rensburg,Nels Cline

It seems to be becoming a habit of mine to write about guitar albums – no surprise there – but also to tackle them in pairs. If you missed my previous lyrical waxing about Marc Ribot and Fred Frith, you can find it here.

Andre van Rensburg – Unfinished Cities

(South of the Border, 2008)

“When he was 6 years old, André van Rensburg strung a guitar string to a plank of wood, attached the other end to his bedroom window bars and yanked the string until it broke. His musical vision has changed little since…”. He has, however, cast a huge shadow in the history of South African leftfield music: his previous projects include the legendary rock trio Supernature (friends of mine from a gig-going generation before me go glassy-eyed when their name is brought up), Ohm (with Brendan Jury), a stint in Battery 9, and the alt-country project Die Menere (with Battery 9 mastermind and One F label boss Paul Riekert). Van Rensburg has since relocated to Taiwan, where he has been pursuing his interest in Eastern melodicism, Derek Bailey’s brittle tone as well as John Zorn’s compositional strategies.

‘Unfinished Cities’ is the second album to contain van Rensburg’s solo compositions, but it features contributions from, among others, violinist Brendan Jury and japanese Koto player Chieko Mori, who mainly provide thin, dissonant backdrops to van Rensburg’s plucky acoustic performances. The opening track ‘Unfinished Cities pt1″ is probably the most seductively melodic piece here, a beautifully winsome composition that nevertheless sets textural tone for the more challenging material that follows.

‘Unfinished Cities’ can be purchased from CDBaby here, and is available in South Africa from One F Music (drop Clair a mail via ‘General Enquiries’).

Andre van Rensburg’s official website is here.

Nels Cline – Coward

(Cryptogramophone, 2009)

Nels Cline is unfortunately best known for being the guitarist of Wilco: a band i’ve just always found too bland to bother with. Yet Cline has a slew of other, less commercially successful projects, in which he explores many other facets of the guitar; such as The Nels Cline Singers.I also remember hearing a track of him playing with saxophonist Paul Flaherty and (my favourite) drummer Chris Corsano, which was just about the most evil, unhinged wall of noise i’ve heard. From what i know, ‘Coward’ is his first solo album, which is quite odd given the length of his career so far but also understandable in the light of his propensity for collaboration.

One of the first things that strike you about ‘Coward’ is the sheer variety of approaches represented on the album: whether this is a good or bad thing depends on whether you are assessing it as a coherent listening experience or whether, like me, you take the breadth of scope to be an almost didactic indication of syntactic possibilities.

Another thing that hits you early on is the fact that Cline has his chops, in the traditional sense. Cline could, if he wanted to, be one of those guys in guitar shops showing off ridiculously complicated licks designed to intimidate prospective young guitarists. The fact that a cluster of later tracks are titled ‘Onan Suite’ might be a wry allusion to this. The lovely acoustic track ‘Prayer Wheel’ centres around a looped motif but plays around it with some impressive, and very effective note runs. The very next track, ‘Thurston County’, however, after cycling through some spidery dissonant arpeggios and glutinous pitch-bent notes, settles into an unabashedly dumbed down two-chord chug that is incredibly ebullient and just so damn good. This is territory that most virtuoso guitarists won’t venture into, but thankfully Cline does. Throughout the rest of the album Cline puts his virtuosity at the service of his compositions, especially on the monumental acoustic piece ‘Rod Poole’s Gradual Ascent to Heaven’, on which sparse motifs evolve slowly into a dissonant frenzy.

Later on in the album, more electronic sound sources and electric guitars come the fore: ‘Onan Suite: Seedcaster’, with it’s lo-fi electronic farts and squawks, sounded so out of character that i thought i’d started listening to a Black Dice album – that alone should be ample testament to how good it is.’Onan Suite: The Liberator’ is another jaunty riff-fest over a straightforward 4/4 drum machine pattern, after which droning closer ‘Cymbidium’ bookends this remarkable album beautifully.

This album is mandatory listening for anyone with an interest in the guitar and its place in future of music.

Read Nels Cline’s notes on ‘Coward’ here.

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Sticky Antlers – Blind Horse Video

Some lo-fi animated fun from Pretoria’s no-fi noiseniks Sticky Antlers.

Blind Horse (animated music video)

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Dual Album Launch Videos pt1

Some videoclips from the recent Newspace Theater performance – firstly from Ramon Galvan’s set – the gorgeous song ‘Salvo’.

The highlight of Ramon’s set was the closer ‘No Rest’, which featured an amazing free drumming performance by Ross Campbell and generally much noise.

Thanks to Jaco Minnaar for filming – I will upload more videos early next week.

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Pics from Righard Kapp and Ramon Galvan album launch

We’ve got some photos from Nic da Silva and his wife Lauren from the Dual Album launch, you can view the full album here.

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Delay in distributing two new albums

Due to an error at the pressing plant there is going to be a slight delay in getting the two new albums distributed into shops, keep watching this space for news on that.

The launch gig was a wonderful experience, thank you to everyone who contributed to the success of that, particularly The Newspace Theatre and Dirk Hugo for doing the sound. I’ll hopefully have photos and comments up soon.