It's Disjointed Oddities Day! - A review of Disjointed Oddities and Other Such Things - Keith Seatman

It's Disjointed Oddities™ Day!

How will you celebrate?

Firstly can you spot the difference between these three identical images below? 

That’s right! They are completely identical. That’s because on Disjointed Oddities™ Day things that appear different or strange are united in a confluence of joyous abandon. A Child, the Hare and the Old Wooden Chair on Keith Seatman’s celebration of things apparently separate but actually unified: “Disjointed Oddities and Other SuchThings” captures this perfectly. The strange shuffling steam train beat, electronic whistles, creaks and a guide to etiquette at a party playing within, underline the complexities and delights of this exciting EP. “Please and thank you and thank you very much for coming.”

 

No Disjointed Oddities™ Day would be complete without a visit to Grey Lake. The haunting beats and Cutleresque reminiscing are both haunting and strangely hilarious, which of course is a juxtaposition that this day is all about.

Of course it is then time to enjoy the heady hard stamping disco beats Behind the Curtain, Red Room. Jump. Jump and nod your head in a frenzy of nostalgic enjoyment for a forgotten
future as the beat, sweeping synth and electro drum whoops sweep you along.

On Disjointed Oddities™ Day you absolutely can get Something for Nothing. As this exploration of being stalked by a neo-plastic Jenny Agutter android through a haunted 1970’s Antique store shows absolutely. "Listen to this one."

But we are all Broken Folk. “An Empire is falling” as the Revbjelde remix informs us and Disjointed Oddities day will end. But it doesn’t have to. You can celebrate Disjointed Oddities™ day every day by buying this bloody brilliant EP here.

Review - Buried Treasure presents RARE PSYCH, MOOGS & BRASS – REMIXED 1969-1981 – Music from the Sonoton Library

Buried Treasure presents

RARE PSYCH, MOOGS & BRASS – REMIXED

1969-1981 – Music from the Sonoton Library

The old trunk sits in the corner of the room. It creaks and cracks as I fumble with the latch. Sound erupts from within. Excitement. Passion. Forgotten sounds of teletext dreams from Sonoton library remixed by the likes of Revbjelde, Jung Collective, Monoslapper, Zyklus, Jazz Spanky and Buff Plaza swirl about in a hurricane of luminescence.

I click my fingers to High Tension like a Smarties stuffed disco biscuit. Exhausted, I sink to the floor and let the rhythms of a Life in the Fast lane sweep me into a sweet tasting long exposure traffic jam. As the lights drift off into the distance I am reminded that Big Brother is Watching You - undaunted I reach for his enormous hands, letting him pull me into a deep and passionate swing. The 70’s Fun Pop begins and I switch between the joyous slow beats, the siren sweeps and the groovy Scooby Doo backing band. The Moog and Brass take over, a great accompaniment for the late 60’s crime fighting that I feel driven to engage in. I pause for a moment at Towerstreet 17, watching the lights of the elevator as it climbs through the smoke of the ravaged skies. But I must keep Moving Along and so I do, finding myself at the Droid rave on an abandoned space station that orbits the forgotten and blighted sepia landscape. As I turn to leave, O’Mane begins, the melancholy ambulance turns circles around me as the Tokyo motorcycles weave about the floor, bathed in yellow orange and blue flashes of faded neon.

Bathe in this.

Lose yourself in utter groove.

Now. 

(Buy it here...)

Take a trip down The Delaware Road

And we begin...
Reading Town Centre - A dark damp Saturday in November 

The fireworks are exploding around me in time with the mundane tunes of the now. 
I push past the gawping hordes looking out at the Oracle, illuminated by exploding gunpowder expense in this empty ritual to vacuity and excess.
South Street Arts Centre calls. 
Warm red brick.
The old Labour Exchange playing host to ghosts of an imagined past.
The launch of The Delaware Road.

These are not your eyes.

He sits at a table.
Face furrowed in concentration.
This is how it happened.
The lights dim. 
Words weave. 
Tongue and teeth. 
Spit and fury.
Magic and drama. 
Poetry and song. 
Tape and video. 
Valve, magnet, beep, button, loop, moog. 
Sine waves. Liminal waves. Waves of half remembered nostalgia.
We are dragged under the waves into the deep, into and down the Delaware Road.

This unique event was a mesmerizing mix of film, music and poetry. A piece of ritual that at times captured the essence of the UFO gigs with the psychedelic oil projections, dry ice and beautifully weird music.

Surrounded by Smarties they flew their ship onward.

The album that this ritual launched has been in constant use in my house since the gig. Calling up the electric spirits of the 70's, moving me from synthesised ecstasy to mystic knowing to utter joy with each track.The Delaware Road is the brainchild of Alan Gubby, the curator of Buried Treasure, a relatively new but achingly successful record label based in Berkshire.

Hold, hold bare up thy rapture.

The album straddles various genres but is held together by a sense of displaced nostalgia. The title itself is unsettlingly familiar. The Delaware Road, I have been there, I know it.

After several attempts Loose Capacitor make the line go wiggly.

At various stops on the Delaware Road we visit the world of synthesisers, loops and electronica - from the beauty of The Twelve Hour Foundation with Hundreds Twelves and Units; the aural poetry of Ian Helliwell's Water Gardens (his manipulation of ancient sound boxes was a joy to watch); the unsettling joy of Trouble and Strife's The Shag (an instrumental paean to the glories of the thump of glam rock); the electric 80's film noir of Robin LeeAsterion's Que; the freakish mix of sweet loops and demonic possessions in Monoslapper's Twit to the toe-tapping brilliance of  Loose Capacitor with their superb "Theme to Robins Nest".

A watcher in the darkness.

 The road was navigated by Dolly Dolly, his account of this lost aural ritual punctuating the acts. An extract of this poem is on the album. This little snatch of brilliance makes me long for a full length version.

Some people are able to pronounce Revbjelde. I am not one of them.

 The album also plays host to the incredible Revbjelde. This mix of occult chants, didgeridoo, voodoo beats, scratches, mandolin and strings at times seemed like the lovechild of Beats Antique  and the instrumental adventures of the Beastie Boys on Ill Communication  (Tidworth Drum) but it was something far more unique. If I were to sum up the experience of listening to Revbjelde in one word, that word would be: lovelushsmokylicious.

Hat.

Joining the haunting sounds of Revbjelde is the sublime Howlround's  Cradle Cheat (with their tape hanging all over the shop).  We are also joined by the wonderful Dandelion Set who deliver music that matches their clothes (see above).

The man with long hair escaped the screen four minutes and thirty seven seconds after this picture was taken.

The other houses on the Delware Road are populated by Folk Horror - the Rowan Amber Mill's Buzzard and the Nightingale is a haunting piece of music with harp and vocal used to conjure a dream of mist and heather, whilst the brass of Tongues of Fire is the sort of thing that wouldn't be out of place on the narrow streets of Summerisle.

I will never forget this gig.
It was eye and ear opening.
The album is a joy.
Delaware Road is a place I will be visiting again and again.

Buy it!