The countryside may be more beautiful than the city, but its undertow is nonetheless dark. 

For episode 4 of New Musickal Chairs I'm joined by Simon Huw Jones, vocalist for And Also the Trees. One of my absolute favourite bands, the Trees harnessed the post-punk ideology of their urban contemporaries - Joy Division; Gang of Four - and took influence from their countryside upbringing. They formed in 1979 as a means of escaping the confines of their rural locale.

Lyric writing fell to Simon - the eldest Jones brother - who drew on his love of literature, the view from his bedroom window, and the increasingly unconventional guitar-playing of his brother; Justin played guitar like no one else. He landed on a style common with balalaika or mandolin players which, combined with a robust rhythm section, has made for one of the most enduringly unique sounds in alternative music.

As members have come and gone, the band has pushed forward and embraced the urban; from the beat and jazz age to classical music. But they remain connected to environment, and produce records that feel like telegraphs from another time. Urbane, beautiful, and in quiet desperation; the deer out of the forest right before the storm breaks.

With a reissue campaign and career-spanning documentary in production, now seemed a fine time to reflect on the fascinating story of the Trees.

If you like what you hear, please consider subscribing and leaving a comment on your favourite episode!

www.andalsothetrees.co.uk
 
Audio sources:

And Also the Trees - And Also the Trees: https://rb.gy/zpbd5

And Also the Trees - Virus Meadow: https://rb.gy/01f0z

And Also the Trees - Angelfish: https://rb.gy/p8c2z

And Also the Trees - Hunter Not the Hunted: https://rb.gy/qxfxy

FD Films - Slow Pulse Boys documentary trailer: https://rb.gy/tkd9x

November (w/Bernard Trontin): https://novembergeneva.bandcamp.com/

Episode 4 - Simon Huw Jones (And Also the Trees)

An all vinyl mix of Kraut-esque space dub, minimal meanderings, records at different speeds, and poems with/without words.

Noir Age 03/09/23

“The music woke him, and at first it might have been the beat of his own heart. 
He sat up beside her, pulling his jacket over his shoulders in the predawn chill,
gray light from the doorway and the fire long dead.”

Dedicated to everyone stuck on the beach counting each grain of sand.

Jonnine - Tea For Two (Boo)
Troth & Chris Colla - Rain On Ash
Loopsel - Öga för öga
Dissemblance - Attaquer le Soleil
Martin Dupont - Doron Doron
Carmody - Vulcani
Jacques Charlier - Tout Va Bien
Coil - Princess Margaret’s Man In The D’jamalfna
DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid - Reconstruction
Abyss X - Torture Grove
Pessimist - Nothing Positive
Philipp Matalla - Copy Excerpt
Victor de Roo - Voorbenachte Rade
Double Virgo - No Sweat

Wavering Forms 52 -  New Rose Hotel

Some more @sameheads duties recorded live last months.
Calm and slo-mo action here.

Cosmo Vitelli - Sameheads Warm Up (August 18th 2023)

Nordic electronic and experimental music maven Christian Stadsgaard crafted a contagious mix under his solo moniker Vanity Productions.

Tight encounter with demonstrative anarchic force - malleable poles and static maelstrom under active turbulent conditions. Vibrations in aggravating allure & convulsive tension pairing in an evocative manner.

Amulet of Tears 040: Vanity Productions

Music: @vanityproductionsofficial

Artwork: @anasisana

Amulet 040: Vanity Productions

Jake Muir's latest set of soft-focus, sensual electro-concrète, dissolves X-rated gay sleaze flick soundtracks into a shimmering suite of subdued orchestral flourishes and surreal cosmic psychedelia.

After 2020's 'the hum of your veiled voice', a romantic, neo-noir set of nocturnal rattles and lubricated rumbles, Muir began to approach a new concept. Putting together a long-form mix for Honey Soundsystem, he began to consider the eroticized soundscapes of gay subculture outside of the mainstream, looking closely at texture, psychedelia and emotionality.

The idea was to represent queer sexuality in a looser, more experimental manner, grazing the super-sensory pleasure of the bathhouse experience and the illicit joy of cruising without getting too self-serious while doing it. The mix was so popular that Muir followed it up with a weightless sequel two years later, and began developing the concept into a proper album, using more samples of music and dialogue, eventually performing the piece at the esteemed GRM as part of their FOCUS #4 concerts alongside work by Eliane Radigue, Folke Rabe and Chris Watson.

Limited Edition LP & Digi out 28th September.

© sferic 2022.

@jakemuir

Jake Muir - Cruisin' 87 (Bathhouse Blues, SFERIC15)

Ahead of a double LP release scheduled for 2024, @samuelreinhard shares two new chamber pieces, written for piano and strings and recorded in a former church in Copenhagen. The two works unfold slowly, the possibility of stillness lapping at the edges of each gently rendered note. “Moments of silence are okay,” the score reassures its performers. “They are welcome.”
 
Reinhard’s experiments of late have brought to the fore the environmental and digital textures that arise when various instruments are recorded and collaged. The unmanipulated recordings that make up Two Pianos and String Trio offer a variation on that perspective from within a continuous, even narrative performance. Aching and affecting as the melodic progressions that make up Two Pianos and String Trio can be, Reinhard’s generosity as a composer lies most of all in his treatment of instrumental silences as openings for environmental presence. The church in which these works were recorded is porous to the outside world, and this music is too. As a sustained piano note fades, it makes space for sonic interjections beyond Reinhard’s jurisdiction. Is that the wind, some birds, a plane overhead? These presences tend to mingle with the listener’s own environs, such that each listening acquires its own textures, its own specificity, cobbling together the immediate and distant into a layered world of small aural possibilities.

—

All compositions by Samuel Reinhard

Performed by Paul Jacob Fossum (Piano), Nicole Hogstrand (Cello), Ida Nørby (Cello), Margaux Oswald (Piano) and Vincent Yuen Ruiz (Double bass)

Recorded by Juan Felipe Arce Bayona at Koncertkirken in Copenhagen, Denmark

Mixed and mastered by Samuel Reinhard

Design by Coline Houot
Typeface by Kaj Lehmann

Buy album

Samuel Reinhard - Two Pianos And String Trio No. 2

Every Word In The Bible (12 TET)

4-track guitar music, consists of an array of pieces for electric guitar augmented by computer and a 4-track tape machine. The music is primarily composed using melodic motifs and canonical structures in which a set of pitches are transposed in octaves and delayed, creating an ever-evolving cyclical polyphony. After the initial recording, the music was re-amplified in the former machine hall of Ställbergs Gruva - a disbanded Swedish iron mine. Now all of the operational machinery is long gone, leaving a large empty hall made of concrete, tile and ice. 

XK13

Mats Erlandsson - A holographic sky

First self-released Fringe Society EP. Also available on Bandcamp as a FREE download.

https://fringesociety.bandcamp.com/album/s-p-c-m

S.P.C.M.

Fringe Society - A Dreadful Formula

Myelin Sheath is a second self-released EP available on Bandcamp for purchase:

https://fringesociety.bandcamp.com/album/myelin-sheath

Myelin Sheath

Where You Begin

For bookings worldwide/press please contact: fringesocietymusic@gmail.com

Where You Begin

Fringe Society

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