Nothing To Say

"Nothing to say" was compiled in August 1990 from a selection of offcuts and tapes I had hanging around since 1985. It was all instrumental, it was mixed entirely live by cross fading on Earnest (my mixer) between two or three tape decks (and a radio on one song - found sounds!). I can remember the maze of cables all over my bed, swapping tapes to make sure everything was in the right place. It was a lot of fun. Because of this cross fading it is impossible to separate the tracks into their discrete parts and as such the tape is presented as a 30 minute mix.

One other thing to point out, half of these pieces don't have their original titles because I never wrote them down and can only remember a few of them. As such I've made up a few new titles for some pieces using the rules of the original, which is three word titles for everything.

Nothing To Say

A slow start, and a nice bit of tape wobble too. This was recorded around Christmas 1988, in fact just after Xmas Day as I had been given a set of acoustic guitar strings for Xmas.... So that's my crap Kay acoustic and my Casio SK5 playing the keyboard part. Totally improvised and it shows.

Pulse Width Mod

Not the original title, this was recorded around January or February 1987 on a shitty Memorex tape which snapped two weeks ago. This is my Roland Sh3a doing absolutely everything, the pulsing bass, the melodies and percussion. This went on a lot longer originally. There's five overdubs here, bouncing between two tape decks through my little Tandy four channel mixer.

Bounce That Dog

Not the original title. This was one of the few pieces recorded specifically for "Nothing to say". It's me trying to do the Art Of Noise with a small Casio sampler. It's quite funny actually. Doesn't outstay it's welcome either. Right at the end you can hear that I'm taping over "Maybe after he's gone" by The Zombies.

Treats For Cheats

Again, not the original title. This was recorded in August 1988 as one of the first pieces once I got my Casio SK1 home and therefore marks the start of the sessions for "The kindest lie".

Dark Not Shark

An odd one this, I think it was recorded in November 1985 during the week I borrowed a flanger pedal from David Blake, the guitarist in my band Final Ecstasy  (and yes I've found our five song tape, you'll love it). The melody is played on a Casio.VL-tone and I presume the strange atmospheric noises are the Roland Sh3a through the flanger. I think my good friend Mike Hole was involved in this recording, probably playing the Roland. He's on Twitter, give him a follow.

Cheese On Toast

Speaking of Mike Hole, this is his song. We were in a band together for a while, there were four of us - Mike, Jeremy, Steve and myself, three non musicians and me. There's a tale to tell another time about Anonymous, but the only actual song we had was this melody written by Mike which he called "Cheese on toast". This melody hung around in my head for years and I recorded it in August 1990, mainly because I knew Mike would be one of the few people to hear it. Features more sampling from the Casio SK5, including the dog preset.

Maybe Sometime Never

Not exactly sure when this was recorded, the drum sounds suggest samples of the tom toms on "The daily planet" by Love on the SK5 so maybe 1989? It just exists and buggers off again. That guitar note is annoying as hell.

NIREX commercial scare

Amazingly that is the original title,.I remember that! Recorded April or May it was just a big stupid riff and a stupid guitar lick on top of it. I had bought an overdrive pedal and I wanted to use it. Goes on too long.

The Other Side

A song with a history. I bought the Casio SK5 for £50 in my first week in the second year in Sheffield and composed a number of songs on it which went into "No happy endings". I also wrote this piece which I called "Drinking acid in somebody's house" which gives some idea of where my head was at. I recorded it in August 1990 and frankly I'm not sure how I managed it, lots of the SK5 drums, the Roland Sh3a on high resonance and me twiddling the dial on my radio and feeding it through my chorus pedal and dropping it in totally on the hoof. It worked, I think.There was an alternate version of this song I found recently, the same backing track but I had sampled some phrases into the SK5 - "Who's in the pub? Wh-wh- Who's in the pub?" -"Shit house!" And strange shouts of "Arnie!" 

6th August 1986

Recorded on that day, and a piece of gloom which reflected quite accurately how I felt at the time. Again there's about five overdubs here, the guitar part is as muddy as I could make it then loads of synths being mournful over the top. Later rerecorded for "Thank you sorry" without the tape hiss, so it lost a lot of the atmosphere.

This was the second version of "Nothing to say", there was a first version on the other side of the C60 which has a few of the same pieces and a few others which never got used. If you really want it then shout.

listen here

Songs for TracyK

The esteemed @Perlalaloca is carrying out a long term scheme on Twitter called #TheMixtapeProject where each week a different individual contributes a playlist on Spotify like an old fashioned compilation tape – an imaginary C90 of music for someone else to listen to. This playlist will go public on Sunday nights, shared by Tracy and others, and folks can listen to it and comment on what they enjoyed and didn’t enjoy.

And I’m contributing the playlist for week 5.

But you know me, I like the sound of my own words and have too much to say for myself, so I offered to write some sleeve notes for this playlist, partly to explain my choices and partly as something to do which may well kickstart my writing after a fallow period.

So here we go....

Side one (yes it’s meant to be a proper compilation tape with two sides)

“Fanfare” – Eric Matthews (from “It’s heavy in here” LP, 1995)

Every mix should start with a fanfare of trumpets, and what better way than this? Eric Matthews appeared in the mid 90s, firstly as part of Cardinal with Richard Davies, and then solo – this was his first solo single, issued by Sub Pop in 1995. I think my 7” was on clear vinyl. Eric’s second album “The lateness of the hour” is end to end brilliant, and is well worth checking out.

“Count it up” – Field Music (from “Open here” LP, 2018)

I’ve only heard one Field Music album before their new one, but “Open here” is great and is highly recommended. Under normal circumstances I would include the closing song which I had on repeat recently and which moved me to tears, but this is just an instant pop song, but with a lot of bite in the lyrics department.

“Remove for improvement” – Colin Newman (From “Not to” album, 1982)

Of course Colin Newman is the lead singer in Wire, but it was good to see his early 80s solo material reissued last year, and getting a lot of love too. There’s plenty of Wire offcuts on these albums, and “Remove for improvement” is one such song, rehearsed in 1979 but not recorded properly at the time. It’s one of the highlights of Newman's career, a song which sounds so simple but builds with more interlocking guitar parts as it progresses.

“My denial in Argyle” – Woodpigeon (from “Die Stadt Musikaten”, 2011)

Isn’t it great when you walk into a record shop, hear them playing a great song and walk up to the counter and say “I want to buy what’s playing”. That was how I discovered Woodpigeon, in Diverse Records in Newport, Summer ’09. That song was “Cities of weather”, from their second album, but this is from their third album a year or so later. Why? Why not. It’s a great song and is about as rocking as they get.

“Goodbye it’s 1987” - Microdisney  (from “The clock comes down the stairs” LP, 1985)

I’m not one for band reunions, but Microdisney reforming to play “The clock comes down the stairs” is good news. It’s an album which hasn’t aged a jot, it seems the mid 80s world of Tory ruination is just as relevant in 2018 – who’d have thought it? “Let’s tax the wages of sin” indeed. I could have picked any song from the album but this fits nicely with the next song.

“Suspicious Minds” – Elvis Presley (from “From Elvis in Memphis” album, 1969)

When I was young my three major musical loves were The Beatles, Elvis Presley and the Wombles. There was a time all three acts were on this playlist. Why is this here? Because it’s Elvis at his very best. One of my first memories of this song is seeing a promo film for it involving Elvis in prison. On the other hand, there is no promo film for this song. So I probably dreamt it. Just ignore me, ok?

“Stained glass” - Real Estate (from “In mind” LP, 2017)

I came to Real Estate via Rob’s Alphabet Of Indie, which goes to show I do listen to everything suggested. That was “Had to hear”, and not long after that they issued their most recent album “In mind” and I listened to little else for about a month. It’s just perfect guitar pop, and the songs are mostly hopefully treaties on love and belonging. And to those people who say there’s no such thing as perfect pop, it’s all subjective.

“Off your face” – My Bloody Valentine  (from “Glider” EP, 1990)

As I’ve said many times, an album of MBV songs which sounds like this would shit all over “Loveless”. There’s so much going on here. Those swooping guitars! The bass which is all over the place! The words! The chaos of guitars fighting in the background. And once the singing stops it just keeps on fucking going and those swooping guitars play in the air like courting doves. Sublime.

“King’s Lead Hat” - Brian Eno (from “Before and after science”, 1977)

Jesus, I’ve been listening to this song for 35 years now and I still get something new from it. Eno does punk as a tribute to Talking Heads, and it makes no sense but works anyway. How have I never noticed how the bass is slightly late to every bar?

“Now is now” – Band Of Susans (from “Now!” mini LP, 1992)

As I write this sleeve note I’m also writing a Toppermost on Band Of Susans, how they were brilliant, how they should be revered alongside Sonic Youth and other Blast First bands for their carefully built wall of guitars, but nobody noticed them then and even less so now. Hell, I missed them at the time,  what do I know? And also what I’m saying is that underneath the wall of guitar noise they could write great melodies and songs too. Which is why this is here. I always wanted my band to cover this song, I reckon we could have done it proud.

“She floated away” – Husker Du (from “Warehouse : Songs and Stories” LP, 1987)

I’m not the sort of person to say “go read my blog” but frankly the best way to understand how important “Warehouse” is to me is to read my blog post on Goldfish about it. Also, the bottom end of this sucks in relation to the previous songs,  someone somewhere must be remastering the Husker Du catalogue to give it some balls. “A man has two reasons for things that he does, the first one is pride and the second one is love” True, that.

Side two

“Tilting at windmills” – The Field Mice (from “For keeps” LP, 1991)

If side one was fast and (relatively) happy, side two is slower and more melancholy. Which is a good place to bring in the Field Mice, who really are one of the most important bands ever for me. This isn’t one of their lyrical odes of loves lost and won and misunderstood, this is an atmospheric instrumental which fits perfectly for the purpose. Dreamy.

“High flying bird” – Moose (from “...XYZ” LP, 1992)

From the “Be my baby” drumbeat onwards, this is sublime. A hazy shade of autumn, so many memories here, I may just end up saying nothing useful about side two because it’s songs with memories and prickling eyes and ice shivers down the spine.

“Transistor” - Kraftwerk (from “Radio Activity” LP, 1975)

A short and bittersweet interlude. Crossing the Severn Bridge at night, after a long journey from France, dozing off but nearly home and happy and sad too that it’s all over. I was 14, ok? Not falling asleep at the wheel....

“I believe in you” – Talk Talk (from “Spirit of Eden”, 1988)

Late night buses, later nights alone in bed, headphones on, picking up the details, working out what the hell was going on with this album. So human, some mistakes are meant to be recorded. And then the choir comes in like sunlight through stained glass and illuminates the emotions.

“I feel like going home” - Yo La Tengo  (from “I am not afraid of you and I will beat your ass” LP, 2006)

Standing outside a call centre at 9pm and walking around in a teary eyed daze. Thinking I was right when I was utterly wrong. And that chord change on the word "alone".. “Running from the voices filling up my brain”.

“Luftschloss” – Eno / Moebius / Roedelius  (from “After the heat” LP, 1978)

Cutting a hedge on a stepladder and almost falling off when this came on. Thank God I don’t have to do that any more.

“I was just dreaming” – The Orchids (b side to “Tharmaturgy” single, 1992)

“Do you know what I mean?” she whispered to me.... in the right / wrong mood this is the greatest song in the world. The Orchids are one of the greatest bands in the world. Every line strikes a chord with me. “And you know she almost smiled?”

“Country rain” - Slowdive (from “In mind” EP, 1993)

I sometimes feel that I romanticise the past too much, but bloody hell the 1992 to 1994 period of my life was filled with wonderful music and crushing on completely the wrong person(s) in such a devoted way that the two things are completely entwined. “And I wish you were mine”.

“All that love and maths can do” - The Durutti Column  (b side to “Tomorrow” single, 1986)

One of my three favourite pieces of music ever. 21st March 1986. Still clear in my head every time I hear the song. Tears? Oh hell yes. Every time.

“Between two points” – The Montgolfier Brothers (from “Seventeen stars” LP, 2000)

Your guardian angel gives up the ghost.

“The great dominions” – The Teardrop Explodes  (from “Wilder” LP, 1981)

One of the greatest album closers ever, from one of the greatest albums ever. And I guess a bit of hope after so much despair in the past. Sorry if I’ve gone on a bit and it’s not made sense. It’s just what music does to me, I can’t express myself very well under normal circumstances (partly my ASD and partly just me but mostly it's the ASD) so I get emotions and emotional through music, it’s why music means so much to me, a way to unlock emotions, a way forward to understanding other people, and maybe making a little bit of sense of my world. Music is important. I hope it is to you too. These are some of my favourite songs, I hope you have enjoyed them, even if you don’t have the memories I have. Thank you for listening and thank you to Tracy for asking me to do this and thank you for indulging me. Thank you and God bless.

Mangled Tapes - an introduction

So I finally found a tape deck which works so I can now hook it up to a computer and start to digitally transfer my old tapes of my songs recorded between 1985 and 1994 for your pleasure or punishment. Some of my old tapes are already on Soundcloud and have been written about on the main blog (thats A Goldfish Called Regret) but I may well transfer them over here. This isn't going to be comprehensive, there are tapes missing or just not located yet but I'll do what I can. You can download them, listen to them once and delete them as far as I'm concerned. This means more to me than you, but that's to be expected. But there you go, a big chunk of my past. I'll write sleeve notes which might put the songs into context. All tape hiss is entirely necessary, no tarting up will be performed on the tapes. This is raw Rob Morgan. Enjoy!