The Trunk 17/12/2017: 2017 In Review, Part 4

Welcome to the fourth and final part of our year in review - and, with it, the last Trunk of 2017!

collective groan from the audience

But don't worry - we're determined to make this year go out with a bang. If you've just joined us, we highly recommend skipping back to parts one, two and three before proceeding.

Alright, enough preamble. Prepare yourselves for the final chapter!

22nd September: Universal Medium

"The coastline was something to behold, even though my monocle was irreparably broken."

Alliterative duo Stuart Stephens and Paul Powell gave us this slice of ambience-infused prog back in September, and it quickly became one of Elephant Towers' go-to chill-out albums. Universal Medium is like a good dessert - deep, rich, and easy to lose yourself in. Shying away from the kitchen-sink tendencies of some of their prog contemporaries, Whitewater exhibit an admirable degree of restraint, making careful use of musical space to ensure that the many, many layers never become overwhelming - at least, not in a bad way.

13th October: Fukushima Surfer Boys

Look, I know that last one wasn't exactly A-grade material, but it's getting very hard to write amusing captions for these abstract covers, okay?

We move now from something relaxed to something decidedly less so: Fukushima Surfer Boys is a concentrated ball of electric energy. Clever application of distortion, both vocal and instrumental, is what really makes this album. There's a fuzzy, staticky edge to this joyously weird album which, far from bogging it down, lends it a unique verve that combines with the overall hectic pace to create a record that takes you on a breathless and brilliant rollercoaster ride.

3rd November: The Divine Abstract

Like, look at this. How am I meant to say something funny about whatever this is?

I've tried not to bring personal opinion into this year-in-review too much, but there's no hiding the fact that The Divine Abstract is one of my favourite albums of 2017. Justly critically acclaimed for its bewildering range of instrumentation and impressive laundry list of guests, this album grabs you by the brain from the moment you first hear it, and is unlikely to let you go anytime soon. There's an easy, jazzy confidence to The Divine Abstract that really sells the diversity and technical genius of its music. Charlie Cawood may well have a masterpiece on his hands.

1st December: Murder and Parliament

A leaked X-ray of Tom, behind the frankly unconvincing human suit.

Can Tom Slatter, an artist known perhaps first and foremost for his weird lyrics and surreal narratives, pull off an album with no vocals at all?

Apparently so. Talented git.

Status Update

Christmas is in full swing at Elephant Towers, and various members of the team have been sighted hiding in pine trees, shovelling handfuls of chestnuts into their greedy maws, and, most bafflingly of all, watching primetime television. 'Tis the season - but the season for what, we know not!

Review Roundup

We've a surprising number of reviews to cover in this last Trunk of the year! First of all, two in French - Chromatique's take on Irritant and Profil's review of Fukushima Surfer Boys. We are reliably informed that these are both positive. (It's times like these that I really regret abandoning French at 14.)

Jerry Lucky of The Progressive Rock Files has also given Murder and Parliament an "Intriguing" rating, calling it, um, "intriguing". And Roger Trenwith, in his annual list of the best albums of the year, gives spots to a plethora of BEM bands - see how many you can spot!

That's it from us for this week, and, indeed, this year. We're taking two weeks off for the holidays, so The Trunk will return on the seventh of January in the shiny new year of 2018. Until then, take care, and enjoy the music!

The Trunk 10/12/2017: 2017 In Review, Part 3

Welcome back, my friends, to the show that ends next week - but we've eight releases to get through before then, so let's get back to it.

9th June: Irritant

This is what lab safety posters look like in the mirror universe.

Bristolian melodic prog quintet Schnauser kicked off our summer (shut up, summer totally starts at the beginning of June, solstices be damned) with a wacky, psychedelic slice of a very special kind of music. If track names like "Chinese Brainwork", "Hypertension" and "Sorry, You Were Out" don't grab your attention, the smooth, groovy sax and perfectly cheesy synths most definitely will. So, whether or not you've got PPI, you should find Irritant enjoyably weird - and weirdly enjoyable.

23rd June: Confound and Disturb

Sadly, we didn't have the budget to photograph the other half of Rob's head.

BEM released a spoken word album in 2017.

It's bloody good, actually.

Robert Ramsay is a longtime friend of the label, but we had no idea what to expect from his first solo project. What we got was a combination of Rob's brilliantly unsettling voice and an assortment of weird noises, with an atmosphere all of its own. Make no mistake: this is music, unfettered though it may be by such petty mortal concerns as "instruments" and "tunes". On a label full of strangeness, it's still easily our strangest release of the year.

4th August: Minotaur

Insert awful joke about taking the bull by the horns here.

After This, you'd think Simon Godfrey might be content to hang up his hat and call it a year on the new music front, but you'd be wrong. Nothing can stop this man, and Shineback, the project that gave us BEM's very first release, returned with a vengeance in August, giving us both a powerful twenty-five-minute package of smart, precise electronic beats and a harbinger of bigger things to come next year. (Oooooh.) It even features Rob on the track we've chosen to represent it! Man, those two are so close, you'd almost think they used to be in a band together or something.

1st September: My Tricksy Spirit

Who spilled all that paint all over our nice clean green screen?

My Tricksy Spirit's self-titled debut album brought us into autumn with characteristic flair. It's a spacey, melodic journey, featuring a wide range of performers and many, many instruments from all manner of cultures to explore. Ever heard a tabla? A tsouras? How about a gender wayang? Here's your chance! A kitchen sink in the very best way, My Tricksy Spirit reminds us that innovative music isn't just about iterating on the traditional Western canon. One of MTS' members, a certain Mr Charlie Cawood, would give us another stark reminder of this later in the year... but that's a story for next week!

Status Update

Tumbleweed wheels past BEM head office, at least until we can catch it with the hoover. 2018 draws ever closer, and we must sit tight and brace ourselves for the wonders and horrors it will bring... as should you.

Review Roundup

Schnauser were featured in this month's issue of the CRS magazine! For the full article, we highly recommend picking up a copy, but you can find a very small preview right here...

It really is very small indeed. We did warn you.

Join us again next week for the fourth and final volume of our 2017 year in review!

The Trunk 3/12/2017: 2017 In Review, Part 2

Welcome back to our whistlestop tour of what BEM's been up to this year! Last week's Part 1 took us up to March, and today's feature will get us as far as mid-May, so let's cut the preamble and get back to it!

14th April: Baritonia

"David, can you think of something witty to say about a literal coffee stain?" "Nope." "Aight."

How do you explain The Bob Lazar Story? Well, the men behind the project, New Zealand-based noodlers Matt Deacon and Chris Jago, have called it everything from "ProgMathsyFusion" to "tritonal wankery", but honestly I still don't think I'm any further forward. Nonetheless, an album with track names like "Toptop Switcherooney, Elbow Patch Man" surely deserves a listen, and such curiosity would indeed be rewarded - this is an odd album, but a thoroughly satisfying one, with equal parts moderation and flair and superb musicianship across the board.

28th April: Field Recordings

Efforts to establish a BEM annex in the Hell Dimensions are still underway.

Field Recordings is proof positive of that there's nothing quite like The Fierce And The Dead live. After Spooky Action, we and the band wanted to give everyone a taste of the TFATD live experience, a finely honed wall of guitar that hits like a goddamn express train, and this album, featuring some extremely pretty artwork by Mark Buckingham, is effectively a half-hour chunk of concentrated, unfettered power.

There's more to come from the boys in the new year. In the meantime, present your face for melting.

5th May: Unlike Here

"Morning, Greg." "Morning, Hal."

Italian prog-fusion quartet Syncage were unleashed on the world in full this year, dragging us headlong into an unsettling world of "manner masters" and "unaware actors" in their first full-length album. A smart, vibrant concept piece that tells of an escape from a strange, repressive society, Unlike Here is a highly experimental record that draws elements and themes from so many genres that it's easy to lose count. It also gave us one of the best music videos I've ever seen, a dazzling display of both musical prowess and screwball humour.

The band put together a half-hour documentary film about their experience of putting together the album, and it's well worth a watch (don't worry, there are English subtitles). In a musical field that can tend towards staleness, Syncage are an injection of youthful energy.

19th May: This

Scientifically proven to be our most anxiety-inducing album cover.

Simon Godfrey, eh? First he, as Shineback, gave us an impressive slab of intelligent dance music in Rise Up Forgotten, Return Destroyed - BEM's first ever release. Then he showed us his singer-songwriterly cred with the two volumes of Black Bag Archive. And this year, we got this. And by this I am, of course, referring to This. (We've gotten a lot of mileage out of that joke and we're not stopping anytime soon.)

This (by which I mean... oh, alright, I'll stop) is a kinda-sorta-supergroup fronted by Simon and filled out admirably by Echolyn's Tom Hyatt, Cold Blue Electric's Joe Cardillo, and Stone Jack Baller's Scott Miller. By their powers combined, we received a collection of eminently singable pop-rock tunes that are as diverse as they are brilliant. With influences from XTC to 10CC, it's often unexpected and always a delight to listen to.

Status Update

Murder and Parliament is out now! Stream or purchase the whole album from the Bandcamp page now and see what magic Tom Slatter can achieve with no lyrics whatsoever.

And the Elephant hopes to see a few of you at Masquerade 2 today, featuring Tom, Big Hogg, and plenty more great music!

We're into December now, and Christmas approaches on swift wings. That means a lot of cloak-and-hopefully-not-dagger operations in the dark corridors of Elephant Towers... and not just for presents. Stay tuned.

Review Roundup

Anyone here read Greek? Against the Silence just reviewed The Divine Abstract and Google Translate only gets us so far - but we certainly agree that this album is "a really impressive moment in 2017". Tap into that moment here.

Our year's review is halfway done - next week, we'll have another one! Well, four. But that doesn't rhyme.