Showtime!

We’re afraid that our Head Technician has rather neglected the blog of late. He does send his apologies, but we’re not sure his excuses wash. He claims to have been busy with various releases on other labels. Some of them under different aliases. He is well aware of our policy on moonlighting, and has been reprimanded accordingly.

However, he will soon be breaking cover and has asked us to furnish you all with details of upcoming appearances.

First up, on Friday 2nd August, we have the Outer Church compilation launch event down in Brighton. Details and tickets here.

The compilation is in collaboration with Front and Follow records. Featuring 28 like-minded souls, and coming wrapped in a wonderful letter press card sleeve pack, you need one of these. It is sold out at source, but is still available at a number of quality record shops, including Boomkat , Resident Music and Norman Records.

Next up is the Bozar Electronic Festival in Brussels. HT can hardly contain his excitement, as he will be performing on the same bill as Juan Atkins and Moritz von Oswald, Emptyset, Regis and Silent Servant. PCA are playing the 27th of September, but the festival runs from the 26th to the 28th.

In early December, there’s a show at the Kirkgate Centre in Shipley. More details forthcoming.

There are possibly other dates to come, we’ll let you know as and when.

That rounds things up, so please don’t leave it so long before you visit again…

UPDATE: Webpage for Shipley show is now up here.
…cough…

Two things..

Black Mill Tapes Volume 3…

…is now available for purchase at our bandcamp site for the sum of £5.99.

The Outer Church

Our Head Technician will be performing a live set at this esteemed organisation on the 17th February. Newly installed at Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar, the prospect of an interesting night is assured. Performances from Old Apparatus and slurtronic folkster (it says here) Kemper Norton mean this will be an amazing event.

Also featured are not one, but two documentaries about Warren Ellis (not an Australian musician) and Grant Morrison. Captured Ghosts and Talking With Gods give an insight into the lives and careers of these visionary writers.

Advance booking is highly recommended. Tickets are available here http://www.wegottickets.com/event/152811 for £5.

All Pathways Open…

Right then, our Head Technician has sworn that he will have the next instalment of Black Mill Tapes ready for us by the end of January.

Volume 3:All Pathways Open comprises a further twelve tracks lovingly transferred from those now fabled 1/4″ and cassette tapes.

The Advisory Circle kindly lent a hand and retransferred ‘Electronic Rhythm Number Eighteen’ for which we are very grateful. Our Head Technician tells us this particular segment had been giving him a fair bit of trouble, so the help was appreciated.

Once again it will be available for purchase on our bandcamp page for the sum of £5.99.

Previews will be going up on the SoundCloud page in due course.

UPDATE: Release date now confirmed as 23rd January 2012.

An apology.

For those awaiting the next instalment of the Black Mill Tapes, we’re afraid you will have to wait a little longer…

We were assured by our Head Technician that he would have something for us by the 31st October, the anniversary of our first release. He clearly isn’t going to make that deadline, and has been reprimanded accordingly. He blames the workload that we place on him, but we know he’s been moonlighting, producing illicit remixes and even lining up releases on another label.

We have, however, managed to secure a piece that was destined for Volume 3. HT won’t reveal his reasoning for leaving this track off the (hopefully) forthcoming LP, but we think it’s rather good. Please find relevant material here.

Once again, as part of our continued quality control procedures, please make us aware of your thoughts on this, and all, matters.

A rare sighting…

…the Head Technician in the wild. Approach with caution!

The Head Technician would like to extend a belated thanks to everyone who came down to Belbury Youth Club at The Outer Church on the 14th. He had a grand old time, and hopes you did…

Big ‘shout’ to Joe, Jim, Julian, Ian and Jez for making it a much less nerve-wracking experience than it could have been!

Images courtesy of @lemurcom and @folkhogskola.

…and GO!

We shall release…

…Black Mill Tapes Volume 2:Do You Synthesize? on April 11th.

It will once again be available here for the princely sum of £4.99

You can get a sneak peek at the tracklisting over there.

Don’t forget, you may catch a glimpse of our Head Technician at the Komedia in Brighton on April 14th. He’s playing a set at the Belbury Youth Club night at The Outer Church. Tickets available at the Komedia website.

A good old-fashioned youth club disco!

Gulp! The Head Technician has only gone and agreed to play a live set for Belbury Youth Club at The Outer Church!

Please show your support by not pelting him with rotten fruit and soggy copies of TapeOp magazine…

A fascinating night is guaranteed with the presence of Moon Wiring Club, deejaying from the Ghost Box top-bods, and fine visual treats…

Playlist Society review…

Here’s a Borg (Google) translation of a rather nice review of “Black Mill Tapes Vol 1.” at Playlist Society. 

My thanks to twitterite @_Ulrich_ for the kind words. 

Original article is here:

“I have some end of the world albums that I like. Albums that remove the film of life with a simple gesture, and I know full well that they can accompany me until morning, waiting to be quiet with the first rays of sun. A disc can also be a meeting of the world’s end, some lines written on a website or a few characters thrown enigmatically on a social network. Either we should move on, or our curiosity is drawn to this strange elsewhere, calling us in silence. A chance encounter that in other times would not have happened at that time, but years later. 

Face it, I would never have listened to Pye Corner Audio Transcription Services if, at the beginning of this month, the British magazine Wire had not tweeted their interest in this disc. I have never regretted that click since there is not a day where I do not listen to some tracks. 

Black Mill Tapes Vol. 1 is a thinly disguised tribute to the work of the former radio entity, a cult, the now famous BBC Radiophonic Workshop, which popularize better than most electronic music on the BBC (radio and TV) through its jingles and sound effects. The trademark sound of the BBC until 1998 was signed by the musicians of this British public service. Few know that the series Doctor Who was made in the workshop and a woman who is more, Delia Derbyshire. Black Mill Tapes Vol. 1 pays tribute to that time (blessed by the gods, some would say) where the music was created to serve the common good and general. And it is not insignificant that the title track We Have Visitors is a snap leaning on Doctor Who theme, adding an undeniable kosmische dimension. The eleven tracks on the album draw on the collective memory of the old lady. Short pieces that have the desire to forge an atmosphere of another time and the end of carnival. We can consider this bias lunar leave nothing to chance and the state. This digital work has permeated the historical necessity and carries with it a natural imprint, a thread that leads us on paths through known and sometimes unexpected. Individually, the titles of Black Mill Tapes Vol.1 accompany a harmless the listener, as a complete work it induces the existence of a natural material, an intuitive knowledge of a kinetic law and film. 

Better than elsewhere, this disc gives reason to Jacques Derrida when it told us that the past is now haunting the present. This disc nostalgic know-how of his interviews a spectropoétique electronics, devised by what we guess a few mad scientists, retired from the world, in a studio in London. Everyone knows, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop is dead, distressingly buried for economic reasons but it is reassuring that their spirit lives on.

8/10”

…you get the gist!

Seasonal adjustments…

Well, ‘Black Mill Tapes Vol. 1’ has been out about a week now. Many thanks to those who have already bought it, and to those that have yet to…what are you waiting for? Go get it!

The Head Technician would also like to take this opportunity to thank all the fine folks who have provided support and encouragement along the way…you know who you are, and if you don’t, this is me telling you!