The final track from our 30 track double album, released on 23 November 2013.

Now That's What I Call Keshco - Victims

We couldn't stand the original plodding Waterfront, so have flipped it around into a 3/4-time folk tune for our Now! release, where it sits midway through Side 4 (Disc 2). Comments are welcome, and very very rare so please jump in.

Now That's What I Call Keshco - Waterfront

Taken from our Filmmaker's Reference Kit Volume 1, a free resource of 20 tunes you can use in your creative projects. Going Dutch sees us getting stuck into a groove in old-fashioned krautrock style. You could also use it in your workout, or during a sweaty bondage session. Written and played by Andy Brain (synth, bass), Bob Follen (synth, drums), Luke Sample (guitar) and Ines Boente (string synth).

Going Dutch (perverted Groove)

An exclusive! Trimmed from the full version on our Filmmaker's Reference Kit Volume 1, a free resource of 20 tunes you can use in your creative projects. Going Dutch sees us getting stuck into a groove in old-fashioned krautrock style. You could also use it in your workout, or during a sweaty bondage session. Written and played by Andy Brain (synth, bass), Bob Follen (synth, drums), Luke Sample (guitar) and Ines Boente (string synth).

Going Dutch (Perverted Groove) 7 Inch Edit

A happy ditty to help you through those long working nights. Submitted for the FMA Micro-Song Contest 2015.

Son Of A Systems Engineer (micro-song)

Released for Netlabel Day 2015, this EP bursts into life with a swoosh of superhero strength, shatters into fragments within a pumping synth groove, goes offline in disgust at social media, drifts past the ghosts of inner space, then runs naked into the forest only to find its tree hiding place isolated by bickering workmen.

Ines Boente - electric guitar, Yamaha synthesizer

Andy Brain - vocals, acoustic/electric guitar, Yamaha/Casio/Gakken synthesizer, effects, computing

Bob Follen - voices, acoustic guitar, effects

Caroline Vile - vocals, clarinet, recorder, effects

Recorded on 4-track, 8-track and mobile phone

Mixed/mastered in Andy's living room

Thanks to Luke for advice

Cover art by Bob Art Models

Released as part of Netlabel Day 2015

Keshco - 03 - Me! I Connect To You

We are contributing a track to a Bowie-themed radio show in January. Here's what we've come up with. Andy: Vocals, electric guitar, bass guitar, app synth, beatboxing, percussion. Caroline: App synth, blower, percussion. Bob: Phone vocals, sound effects boxes.

RATIONALE: Playing up the lyrical theme of loneliness/hiding, the lead vocals are all on one note, too frightened even to explore the scale. The other vocals could easily be TV/radio programmes our narrator is watching whilst by themselves. Sleigh bells inevitably make us think of Christmas. I'm thinking of someone alone at this festive time. Let's all look out for quiet lonely people, always, but particularly in this distracted busy time. There's so much bad in the world, but so much potential too. Teary-eyed middle-aged love, Keshes xx

Art credits: MoMoJaJa (available at http://www.redbubble.com/people/momojaja/works/24539848-xmas-pudding-and-holly)

Sound And Vision

This is our entry to an international art project for peace, organised by some lovely creative people in Belgium. The video for "Say No!" was one of many broadcast at Kaaitheater, Brussels on 22 January 2017 to highlight the cause of conscientious objection to war. Writers Elvis Peeters and Dick van der Harst wrote the original song, and this is our interpretation, one of over 30 submitted tracks.

(The videos will then be displayed as a "monument to the deserter" - this video installation will be in De Markten, Brussels, during April-May 2017 before travelling.)

More info on the project: http://sayno.be (this is in Dutch)

Music: Andy Brain (vocals, beatboxing, synthesizers, chimes) and Caroline Vile (clarinet)

Say No!

Keshco returned to deXter Bentley's Hello Goodbye show on Saturday 28 January 2017, bashing through four tunes:

In The 21st Century  (new track written that week)
Son Of A Systems Engineer Manager  (originally from 2010's "Accountants By Day")
Zoetrope  (originally from 2002's "Saplings Of Sop")
Stock Share Shuffle  (originally from 2015's "Get Out And Vote")

Andy Brain - vocals, acoustic guitar
Luke Sample - vocals, electric guitar, melodica, shakers
Caroline Vile - vocals, Yamaha VSS200 keyboard

Many thanks to deXter Bentley for being a welcoming and genial host once again, to co-presenter Beth Rogers for kindly filming us, and to sound engineer Ilia Rogatchevski.

Hello Goodbye Session (Resonance FM) - 28 Jan 2017

This is our entry into the Audio Cookbook competition run by WFMU's Free Music Archive. The lyrics work as a recipe for making yummy no-bake protein balls in the style of those expensive Bounce ones.

From the upcoming EP, "Carvery In The Community", to be released on Netlabel Day, July 14 2017.

Bounce Balls

Here's a little confection we cooked up for Christmas 2017. The original, of course, came out in 1964. This remake of a Beatles classic was brought to you by: 

Andy - vocals, guitars, Casio SK-5, percussion, beatboxing
Caroline - vocals, recorders

If I Fell

This is our theme for the 2018 CONIFA World Football Cup, being held in London and featuring 16 teams outside the FIFA system, representing nations, de-facto nations, regions, minority peoples and sports isolated territories. A fine organisation to support especially if you're sick of the usual sports bureaucracy and corruption nonsense. Find out more at www.conifa.org, or here's the video for this song (come on, somebody watch it): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwZmQfE03Qs

Play For Your People (written for the CONIFA World Football Cup 2018)

Here's the first preview track from "Never Eject", our double-pack tape + art object release for Cassette Store Day 2018. We're on the UK and Japan stock lists. Hassle your local record store to ensure they get in some Keshco tapes for 13th October 2018.

About the song: The sinister goth-pop of "Plastic And Glass" dates from 2000 and I've taken a jam recording of the band at that time, looping the instrumental sections. The cut-and-shut method adds to the queasy, dislocated feel. The lyrics have been mostly rewritten; it's a song where the narrative only became clear in retrospect. It makes more sense now in an online world of webcams, findoms and addiction.

Andy Brain: Vocals, guitar, programming
Bob Follen: Original drums
Luke Aldington: Original bass
Gareth Monger: Original synth (Casio CZ-5000)

Plastic And Glass

Here's the second preview track from "Never Eject", our double-pack tape + art object release for Cassette Store Day 2018. We're on the UK and Japan stock lists. Hassle your local record store to ensure they get in some Keshco tapes for 13th October 2018.

About the song: Mournful piano psychedelia, "Misguided" is Bob's pointed answer to those who believe the rock myth about all the greats being reliant on drugs for creativity.

Bob Follen: Lead vocal, piano, programming
Andy Brain: Backing vocals, effects
Caroline Vile: Backing vocals

To help searchers: totp, 6music, the wire, resonance fm, wfmu, creative commons, hallucinogenics, addiction, clean, creativity, the joy of music, bbc4, neo-psychedelia, trippy, far out, spacey, wooden tapes, art, yba, london, yorkshire,

Misguided

Here's the third preview track from "Never Eject", our double-pack tape + art object release for Cassette Store Day 2018. We're on the UK and Japan stock lists. Hassle your local record store to ensure they get in some Keshco tapes for 13th October 2018.

About the song: Luke's angry grungy guitar on "The Fens" backed with deep bass and stabs of synthesized white noise makes perhaps one of the hardest sounds we've ever put out. This is then subverted in "The Fens Jig", which features Caroline on a saucy madrigal-style recorder, plus riding crop percussion and a purring drone played by gripping a magic wand. (Want to hear that one? Get the album!)

Luke Sample: Lead guitar, percussion, effects
Andy Brain: Bass guitar, percussion, synth, programming

To help searchers: totp, 6music, the wire, resonance fm, wfmu, creative commons, hallucinogenics, addiction, clean, creativity, the joy of music, bbc4, punk, shoegaze, far out, spacey, wooden tapes, art, yba, london, east anglia, fenland, outsiders,

The Fens

Here's the fourth preview track from "Never Eject", our double-pack tape + art object release for Cassette Store Day 2018. We're on the UK and Japan stock lists. Hassle your local record store to ensure they get in some Keshco tapes for 13th October 2018.

About the song: We finish the album with our first rendition of old traditional number "The Kesh Jig", with Luke and Caroline duetting on flute and recorder, played to a rocking 12/8 beat and our own chord pattern.

You may remember a version of this tune from "Titanic". Does not include Kate Winslet!

Andy Brain: Acoustic guitar
Bob Follen: Drums
Luke Sample: Flute
Caroline Vile: Recorder

To help searchers: totp, 6music, the wire, resonance fm, wfmu, songlines, cambridge folk festival, strawberry fair, creative commons, creativity, the joy of music, bbc4, wooden tapes, art, yba, london, east anglia, fenland, outsiders, kesh, jig, country dancing, ceilidh, fun, uptempo, jiggle, wiggle, groove,

The Kesh Jig

26-minute suite of psychedelic soundtracks for trashy horror. There are two versions - this is the original band performance. Chosen for a (fairly unrepresentative) cassette release as part of Cassette Store Day 2014 on both sides of the Atlantic. If you prefer short pop songs, we've got those too.

If you're looking to use sections in your film, it may help to note that the main sections are between about 1:00-5:00, 6:00-12:00, 13:00-18:00 and 19:00-26:00.

Keshco - Freaks At A Wake

Purveyors of the finest psychedelic folk, tatty synthpop and odd noises. Left-wing. Open-minded. Open-ended. All human life is here.

We're Keshco, a quartet who play psychedelia, synthpop, folk, cut-ups, jingles... whatever we feel like. We all write, sing and play multiple instruments. It's a proper cottage industry, all recorded and released from home.

Unifying themes include unsparingly honest self-deprecation, left-wing social/political outlook, love of the nervous outsider, and a fair dose of whimsy and surrealism. We're not keen on repeating ourselves, so do dig deep as there's good stuff (lyrically, melodically, rhythmically) all the way back.

We occasionally do online concerts from home, and we release an EP every few months. There are also comedy films, and our own zine, "Beware!".

To be clear: our music is about all bits of human experience. We try to put across all parts of life, the rushing highs and the crushing lows, the mundane and the bizarre. Sometimes all at once. Hearing the beginning of a song is no guarantee that the end will be the same. Hearing the beginning of an album is no guarantee of anything. Some songs are deadly serious. Some are froth. Some are both, because you can do that with words. 

Some things we don't do. We are never right-wing, never jaded hipsters, and we never set out to offend good people. We will never make the music you hear on Radio 1. We will never stop caring. We will never stop pushing the boundaries of what we can call Keshco and how far we can push ourselves. We will never stop.

BIOGRAPHY:

Keshco's history goes back to schooldays. Robert Follen and Andrew Brain have been playing and writing together since they first met at school in 1994. Luke Sample met them in 2001 in Leicester; and Caroline Vile was band manager before joining in 2015. Several others have dropped in from time to time.

Central to Keshco’s story has been continual outsider status, and a freewheeling approach which has always taken in grim humour, self-deprecation, political comment, and both precise carefully-orchestrated bits and chance composition. Some would say you shouldn’t do that in the same band. But that’s where the art is. That’s more like how you experience the world. Our main struggle is perhaps how to put this across in a way that is understood as intentional.

There were several 1990s Keshco cassettes, and CDs from 2000 onwards, all as schizophrenic as the more recent releases. 

From 2008 Keshco took to the free scene, and have continued releasing a string of EPs for netlabels.

Keshco also release music as Bleak House - crumbly ambient library incidentals.

Keshco

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