DEAR AMERICA

Swans - Live at MHoW in Brooklyn (30/7/16)

Swans performing at the Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn on 7/30/2016.
Swans are:
Michael Gira – guitar, vocals
Christoph Hahn – guitar, lap steel guitar
Paul Walfisch – vibes, dulcimer, keyboards
Christopher Pravdica – bass guitar
Phil Puleo – drums, percussion, dulcimer
Norman Westberg – guitar

The Knot - 0:00
The Cloud of Forgetting 40:22
Some Things We Do / The World Looks Black 55:35
(Thanks Dray)
Just watch Gira conduct this band

Rio16

Thursday, 4 August 2016

Paul H Williams - Fallen To Earth (Part III)

7 inch 45RPM EP 'Fallen To Earth'
Released by Touch on 12/08/16
Edition of 123 copies
Track listing:
A1: Part III
A2: Part IV
B1: Part I
B2: Part II
Industrial space rock recorded in a bedroom in Beckenham one weekend in the winter of 1981 on a hired Tascam Portastudio and Korg synth with borrowed guitar, bass and FX pedals. Cut by Jason Goz, London, February 2016. Cover image and text by Paul H Williams.
Pre–order in the TouchShop [includes WAV download]

“A December weekend in 1981 was approaching; the first time that a mate and I would make our own recordings on cheap hired equipment in his bedroom…
I’d been talking to Damon Edge of the San Francisco-based acid punk band Chrome over the phone, late at night from the kitchen in my parents’ flat, since the release of “Alien Soundtracks” in the late 70s. He was a glimpse of another magnificent alien world.
I was bathed in the Industrial culture of the time: Throbbing Gristle, SPK, William S Burroughs and JG Ballard. Making my own cut–ups and finding meaning in the collision of medical and science texts with newspapers and magazines; photographing Thamesmead, Heathrow Airport and Dungeness Power Station on Saturday afternoon explorations.
The weekend was a thrill. We each took turns to create our own music. There were four tracks on the Tascam Portastudio to play with and – after tweaking a Korg synth I had no idea how to use, re–wiring my mate’s electric guitar with multiple versions of the same string because I’d read somewhere that Glenn Branca had done it and discovering the joy of turning the cassette over so you could record in reverse – I’d produced four chunks of sound. It felt like a glorious creative haemorrhage of emotion and noise.
Clutching a cassette master of the weekend’s work I went home to my bedroom to listen to what I’d done wondering where it had all come from. And then at 10.15pm on BBC2 that Sunday evening I watched Nic Roeg’s “The Man Who Fell To Earth” for the very first time. I was transfixed by David Bowie’s performance and completely identified with the alien Thomas Jerome Newton trying to navigate his way on planet Earth. Right then I knew that I had to call the music on that cassette “Fallen To Earth”.
In the mid-90s I heard that Damon Edge had died. Even though I’d only talked to him on the phone and met him a couple of times I felt a profound sense of loss. He was the first real artist I had related to. With Helios Creed he had created whole alien worlds that seemed to make more sense to me than the one around me.
This record is dedicated to his memory and is for the brotherhood of all aliens…”

- Paul H Williams (London 22/07/16)

Inspired at that time by San Francisco band Chrome and Nic Roeg's film The Man Who Fell To Earth starring David Bowie.
In memory of Damon Edge.
Other influences back then included Cabaret Voltaire, Suicide, TG, Atomage magazine, William Burroughs and JG Ballard.
Feedback:
Chroma pulse inversion - Graham Duff
Earth assessment transmission - Rob Jones
Altered Emirates - Simon Sellars
Arab alarm siren - Feroze Alam

"I got up quickly corrosive gestures structure in the jet mass facials vehicles parked heels had dragged sighs of the night life new forms of sunburns her clothes on the chair beside the bed all the time salvaged my body is just there in a remote location
on the quiet pavement his leather jacket her empty glass sheen of blood night falls wreckage of a car caged air constant smile a visitor tethered in the sun in the abstract some time ago the celluloid jaws encircle their meal she had visited regions split rain falling from a clear sky the passage of ships looked out of the window a team of experts out of focus cruise every night limousine to a hotel dark shining camouflaged debris-rich from the centre of the galaxy
there is a faint radio very far off low animal forms suspended over a bright ocean last night rinse chlorine eyes I listened to the rain aware of the hissing noise long range radio from a café on the beach"

(PHW 1981)