The Trunk 26/11/2017: 2017 In Review, Part 1

Wwwwwelcome, ladies and gents, to the first exciting installment of the Bad Elephant Music 2017 Year In Review Feature! Over the next four weeks, we're going to look back at all sixteen of our major releases of 2017, which will take us through to the end of the year. (The Trunk is taking the last two weeks off - David almost wouldn't let us, but we did our best desperate Victorian child impression ("but it's Christmas, sir!") and he relented.)

All these albums are still very much in stock, and you can click those titles to head over to the BEM webstore, where you can buy copies, or, in most cases, stream the whole album for free! We'll also be including a sample track from each album to give you a taste right here on The Trunk.

Without further ado, let's get down to business!

3rd February: Flightless

Note: Music, though good, will not induce brain geysers. Hopefully.

Our first album of 2017 was a reissue, taking us almost three decades into the past to revisit and remaster original recordings dating back to 1988. Rog Patterson describes Flightless as an example of his "characteristic bleating on the subject of human stupidity", and it's telling of both the songs and the society surrounding them that the former feel even more relevant now.

In the tradition of the "heavy wood" genre brought to light by Rog's old band Twice Bitten, stripped-back, strings-only instrumentation accompanies Rog's melodious yet biting vocals. Flightless may be older than certain members of the BEM staff, but it has undoubtedly stood the test of time.

3rd March: Tope's Sphere 2

That big planet looks a bit like those plastic flying saucers you put in the laundry.

I had no idea what to think when I first heard this album. I'm still not completely sure what to think even now.

The unique, unpredictable wit of Orange Clocks is probably better experienced than explained. The music is a heady psychedelic blend that evokes the vintage TV to which the album pays homage, and the narration is by turns unsettling and hysterical. That first listen to Tope's Sphere 2 was one of the strangest half hours of my adult life, and I think that's a better pitch than anything else I could say about it.

Well, except telling you all that Tope's sidekick is called Chode. That might sway you.

17th March: Happy People

Apparently, if I mess up a press release, I'm going to get put in one of these.

If there's one BEM artist we can rely upon to make us think and sing along at the same time, it's Tom Slatter. Happy People is a concentrated burst of lyrical bitterness that brings new voices into the mix alongside Tom's own, telling a compelling tale of a dark, paranoid world not so very different from our own. More of a conceptual whole than his previous work, it's a story in and of itself, of which this preview track here is just a single chapter.

It's also catchier than an album with this much depth seemingly has any right to be. We here at Elephant Towers were humming lines from this record for months after the first play, and it still gets played, even from a music library as crowded as ours. Not only does he tell great stories, Tom writes bloody incredible tunes too, and combining the two is a recipe for genius.

31st March: Gargoyles

Jessica never cared much for family reunions.

In their own words, Big Hogg make "electric music for the mind and body". Paying homage to the Canterbury scene with a series of intriguing modern twists, Gargoyles delivers on that promise with a twisting, almost hypnotic series of songs. Laid-back, but never soporific, it's a perfect album for relaxed Sunday mornings (maybe even the one you're currently having!), and for any time when you just want to lose yourself in a tune.

Between carefree whimsy and subtle foreboding, there are many steps to this journey, but somehow none of them feel jarring or out of place. This album closed up a very busy March in admirable fashion, and, just like Happy People, it still gets plenty of play over here.

Status Update

Murder and Parliament is out this coming Friday! If you've not preordered yet, we highly recommend that you do so now so you get the goods as soon as possible.

Masquerade 2 is just around the corner - if you liked the sound of Big Hogg or Tom Slatter in today's feature, both acts will be playing there, so grab your tickets and prepare for a great day's music, "plus masks, madness and pre-Christmas revelry". Fancy!

Review Roundup

Progarchives Special Collaborator (what an ominous title) Kev Rowland has published his review of Fukushima Surfer Boys, and concluded that "those who have more discerning tastes will find much here to enjoy". Oooooh.

And, while it's not strictly a review, Simon Godfrey showed up on Future Feature this week to talk about his experience with Valdez and the production of This. Simon says some words, and we think they're well worth a listen.

We've got nine whole months left to get through, so join us again next week for part two of our retrospective!

The Trunk 19/11/2017: The Lyrics and Legends of Tom Slatter

Even on a label that prides itself on releasing genre-defying music, Tom Slatter has always been especially hard to pin down. He's always been defined most stridently by his songs, and the stories he tells in them, and, given that his new instrumental project Murder and Parliament is now less than two weeks away (we are very excited), now's as good a time as any to take a look back at Slatter's previous work, all five albums of it. Instead of going through album by album, though, we're going to look into some of the more notable themes we've seen repeated over the years, and showcase a few of the best examples thereof.

Hoo boy. Are you ready for this? We're not.

Seven Bells John

Flashback to 2010, and Tom's first solo album, Spinning The Compass. (It's now available in a shiny, remastered digital form for just £5!) Track four, 'Lines Overheard At A Seance', is the first appearance (though not by name) of an unsavoury character who would plague Tom's music for a while to come: the nefarious Seven Bells John.

Who's this guy? He's "a criminal, a murderer", and the voices you hear in this song are his victims. You'll probably be familiar with at least some of the rest of the story if you've heard Fit The Fourth, whose twenty-minute closing track covers the finale of his tale, but perhaps you don't have the full picture yet.

To complete the story, you'll need both of the aforementioned tracks, as well as 'The Steam Engine Murders And The Trial Of Seven Bells John' (also on Fit the Fourth), Tom's EP Black Water, and a few caffeine-fuelled, sleepless nights, until your conscious mind starts unravelling at the seams and everything clicks into place. Or I guess you could just read this synopsis.

The story of Seven Bells John is complex and nonlinear, and didn't become clear as a single story until quite a way into it, so who's to say Tom hasn't woven more narratives into his work, unseen until the time is right? Perhaps even Murder and Parliament, bereft of lyrics, will continue the great work somehow? We shall have to wait and see.

Augmentation

"How many songs about replacing your body parts with mechanical alternatives is too many?" asks Tom in his Bandcamp bio. The correct answer to this question is beyond the scope of this article, but Mr Slatter seems committed to pushing the envelope.

There's a definite steampunk sensibility to many (if not most) of these songs, but it's rarely more evident than in this piece from his third album Three Rows Of Teeth, a track by the name of 'Self Made Man'. Spoilers, it's a more literal take on the phrase that you may be used to.

Self-improvement and self-perfection in general are strong themes throughout Slatter's work, and it's worth listening out for those callbacks and cross-references wherever you can find them.

Infohazards

It's no secret that much of Tom's music is laced with biting wit and a sharp satirical edge. Nowhere is this more evident than on the title track of Happy People, released earlier this year:

Tom describes Happy People as "loosely a concept album", and he's done an illuminating track-by-track writeup of the album and the meaning behind the lyrics - start here. But what Tom may not have told you is that every track on this album is also a potent weapon - played <REDACTED>, at double speed, and with the <REDACTED> part pitch-shifted one octave down, these songs can destroy brain tissue at a distance of up to 500 paces!

Thankfully, you're not allowed to know the exact processes involved, and I don't think Tom himself is entirely aware of what he's created. But I know. I know, and I've got your number, Slatter, and <REDACTED> <REDACTED> <REDACTED> on the <REDACTED> with a <REDACTED> so you'll have to <REDACTED BUT ALSO UNINTELLIGIBLE>

The remainder of this article has been removed for public safety reasons.

Status Update

Preorders are open now for Murder and Parliament and the release date for December 1st draws ever closer. Other than that, we've mostly been keeping calm, watching the skies, and preparing for next year. We do have a rather exciting (and rather bulky) feature starting right here on The Trunk next week, though, so do prepare yourselves for that.

Review Roundup

The Divine Abstract is fast becoming one of BEM's most critically acclaimed releases - congratulations to Charlie on producing something so many people seem to love! He got a shout-out in DPRP's Something For The Weekend feature, praising "a unique album that is a true delight to the ears", and there's a review from PROG Magazine's Alex Lynham, too, agreeing that listeners "will find their explorations rewarded".

Next week, the beginning of the end of the year! Yes, already! Kind of!

The Trunk 5/11/2017: From the Vaults - Spooky Action

Welcome back to From the Vaults, the semi-regular feature where we dive back into the BEM archives to revisit some of our older releases. One of our earliest albums recently celebrated its fourth birthday (has it really been that long?), so we're going way back to 2013, and to an album that's become one of my personal favourites from the label: Spooky Action.

No Photoshop - Matt's hands really do look like that. He should probably get that checked out.

Fortunately, The Fierce And The Dead live up to only the first half of their name. The fiercely capable quartet of Matt Stevens and Steve Cleaton on guitar, Kev Feazey on bass and Stuart Marshall on drums first exploded onto the scene in 2011 with If It Carries On Like This We Are Moving To Morecambe. We at BEM liked this album so much that we released a remastered version late last year - do give it a listen if you haven't already.

But we're not here to talk about that album, not today. No, we're here, in the spirit of the season (what do you mean, Halloween's gone?), to get spooky.

Spooky Action was released in November 2013,

Following on from Morecambe's 'Part 1' and 'Part 2', and the On VHS EP's 'Part 3', Spooky Action opens, as you might expect, with 'Part 4'. This was the first I ever heard of TFATD... and what an introduction it was.



The moment the Big Riff kicked in, I knew I'd be listening to this album a lot over the coming months - and, as it turned out, years. There's just something about the way these guys assemble their songs, with the twin guitars playing off each other and the steady, forceful beat, that makes them extremely earwormy. I'd probably be singing most of Spooky Action to myself constantly if there were any lyrics, but, in their absence, I tend to find myself humming along instead.

TFATD are often classified as post-rock, math-rock, or something similar, but I think this does them a disservice - even just on this album, there's a lot of diversity of sound, from the ominous, bass-heavy crunch of 'Pyramid Hat' to the surprisingly brief proggy excess of 'Entropy'. A standout track for me is 'Let's Start A Cult', known during production as 'Duck Street' because of the weird honks at the start. Take it apart and it's composed of a few fairly straightforward building blocks (well, until it gets to the climax), but put it back together and it never sounds simple or monotonous.

Spooky Action was widely and pretty positively reviewed. It comes "highly recommended" by Jason Ritchie of getreadytorock, PROG Magazine's Malcolm Dome calls it "an album that gives you a glow", and Jester Jay Goldman at Spectrum Culture says it's a "bracing tonic" even in a saturated post-rock scene. Progarchy, too, noted that the album "reaches the depth and richness it reaches precisely because it does not take itself too seriously", and I'm inclined to agree. This is a complex, technically superb album, but it's got heart too, and it's that little injection of tongue-in-cheek verve that pushes the tunes one step above good.

This is to say nothing of what The Fierce And The Dead are like live. They've been playing a lot of gigs this year, including a standout set at RoSFest where they did their job of waking everyone up, as the first act on the Sunday, with charismatic panache. (Word on the street is that this set was recorded, both audio and video. Interesting.) I myself got to see them at the Borderline recently, and it was one of the best gigs I've seen in a very long time indeed.

And, as it happens, you, too, can catch them live next week! They're supporting American metal outfit Big Business at the Underworld on Wednesday night. For more details and tickets, check the event page. Failing that, their live mini-album Field Recordings should give you a taste of the TFATD live experience, and is available right now.

What of Spooky Action? Well, since it's a little older now, you can grab a copy for the reduced price of £5 physical or £2 digital right here. I consider this a seminal piece of label history, and if you don't already own a copy, do yourself a favour and rectify that. You won't regret it, I promise.

And keep your eyes on the skies. Next year is Spooky Action's fifth birthday, as well as BEM's, and you can expect album number three before 2018's even halfway done...

Status Update

Charlie Cawood's The Divine Abstract is out now and on its way to your ears - or, if it isn't yet, you can make it so at the webstore.

Other than that, November is set to be a pretty quiet month for us release-wise, but you can still look forward to a couple of approaching live shows, Prog for Peace next weekend and Masquerade 2 at the top of December - more information and tickets behind the links.

Murder and Parliament, Tom Slatter's new instrumental project, will be our last release of 2017, and you can expect preorders for that very soon.

Review Roundup

Can you round up one review? We're damn well going to try. Progressive Music Planet published their review of The Divine Abstract at the start of the week, and Susan, better known as madvinyl, gave it a rare and impressive perfect 10 review. It quite literally doesn't get better than that.