Hyperculte

I DISCOVERED Hyperculte’s first album while browsing the racks of the in-house record shop at the super-organised and consistently inspiring Zoro squat venue in Leipzig, left there, no doubt, when the hard-working Swiss / French duo (or one of their other musical projects) played a gig in the former vinyl factory.

I can’t think of anywhere better.

I don’t recall what particular section the self-titled album was filed in but, in truth, it could have been any of them. Avant-garde jazz-punk? Pre-kraut post-disco? Trance pop? Take your pick. Hyperculte seem pretty relaxed about genre, categories and boxes.

What I do remember is being struck by the cover image for the album, which featured the duo wearing decidedly un-ironic and bizarre out-size furry costumes by the side of a misty, fairytale lake.

It doesn’t look like they’re having a laugh. The pair of them look like they’re deadly serious, unrepentant, defiant even.

If these hairy chimeras came from some kind of fairy tale, it was clearly one that was infinitely darker, earthier and more primal than the cuddly, sanitised morality tales parents send kids to sleep with today.

In fact, Diego Sanchez’s hugely evocative photography hints at the kind of ancient, amoral, pine-scented central European folklore upon which all that Disney shit is ultimately based.

You can sense a stillness that has sustained for centuries.

It was mysterious, elegant and beautiful. And weird as fuck.

Reader, I bought it.

Reality Asylum revisited

ONCE upon a time, Crass had been all but erased from history.

They were at the epicentre of a genuine nationwide cultural phenomenon that changed thousands of lives profoundly and yet, a few years after they had ceased working as a band, where anyone took any notice of them at all, they were reduced to a mere footnote in the tawdry tale of corporate rock n roll.

That wasn’t good enough. Erase Crass and you also erase the experience of thousands of people like me, as if what we experienced had no value or validity.

It offended my sense of decency. I wasn’t having it. There are plenty of things in the world to get upset about, but righting this particular wrong was part of the reason why I started writing this blog in the first place.

And now? Everyone seems to be going on about Crass these days. Coincidence?

Five x Sergio Mendes

IT’S DIFFICULT to know where to start with Sergio Mendes.

The veteran Brazilian pianist and arranger has released around 50 albums since he made his name freestyling bossa nova tunes with the cream of Copacabana’s jazz and samba players in tiny after-hours dives in the late Fifties and early Sixties.

As John Peel once said:

“A lot of people write to me and say: ‘I heard Sergio Mendes, which record should I get?’ And I never have any hesitation in telling them, you must get them all. Apart from the one he did with will.i.am.”

Reach for Me by Funky Green Dogs from Outer Space (Murk Records)

THREE or four years after hearing Brandon’s seminal acid house tape, music was coming at me from all directions.

The shock waves from the initial slo-mo house detonation continued to roll around the world – bouncing between Chicago, Detroit and New York, reverberating across the Atlantic to London and Milan before booming back to New York and then back again to Ghent and Antwerp and Frankfurt via Sheffield and Manchester and beyond.

And all of these shockwaves seemed to collide in Leeds in 1992.

No sleep til Stretford

BELIEVE it or not, I’ve never actually been on tour with a band before, not officially. I’ve cadged plenty of lifts between shows, blagged x amount of guesties and even provided DJ support services at odd gigs over the years, but nobody has ever been daft enough to invite me on tour.

Not until Gad Whip came along, anyway.

The tour, to promote Gad Whip’s debut long player, Post Internet Blues, has been organised by Armin who runs X-Mist, the label releasing the album. There are eight gigs in 10 days at the start of November, mostly in Germany, plus a couple of dates in Switzerland and France.

Pete doesn’t have to ask me twice.

Under the influence: Girls in Synthesis

“THERE is no time for sentimental nostalgia .. we might not make tomorrow,” say Girls in Synthesis on their last single, and you can’t help thinking that they might have a point.

This is a band who sincerely believe in just battering the shit out of their instruments and, by extension, any audience lucky enough to be in their vicinity at the time. In many ways, this is the only rational response to a world that currently seems to be on as long, extended, slow-mo nosedive into a cesspit of lies, hatred and bullshit of its own making.

Gad Whip Euro promo mix

IT’S a couple of days before I embark on a week of gigs as the actual tour DJ for my very good friends Gad Whip, promoting their Post-Internet Blues long playing-record around Germany and Switzerland, and I’m so excited I could spit.

Shop Assistants

THE SHOP ASSISTANTS tend to get lumped in with all the jingly-jangly stuff that made up most of the NME’s C86 cassette, but they just sound very punk rock to me. All of my Shop Assistants records went west a long time ago but we do have this short Q&A from 1986. Singer Alex answered the questions.

The Ex

EVERYONE was on tour in the States and I was staying at Southview House on my own. Alice and Dan were playing stadiums for MTV with Aerosmith and I was working in Belle Isle. But at least I got to hang out with Derek the dog.

One morning, hungover as hell, I stumble out of my basement bedroom and head upstairs.

I discover the Ex cheerfully bouncing around the kitchen with what I have come to understand is their customary enthusiasm and vigour, laughing and joking with each other in high-volume Dutch while frying cheese and mushrooms with abandon.

The people in Chumbawamba and the Ex had been friends for years – in fact Coby did the live sound for the Ex before she moved to Leeds and began working with the Chumbas – and they’d let themselves in after playing a local gig somewhere the night before. It was that kind of house.

Five x Ministry of Shite dancefloor classics

A LOAD of us went down to the Ministry at some point in the mid 90s and, despite hearing some great music, we were not particularly impressed by the distinct lack of atmosphere compared to clubs such as Kaos, Basics and Hard Times in Leeds. There just wasn’t the same kind of energy and enthusiasm.

A few weeks later, me and Earnshaw DJed at a party at a mate’s house and someone did some jokey flyers saying we were residents at the Ministry of Shite. We ended up keeping the name when we started putting on parties ourselves.

It was all a bit rough and ready, but we had a run of great parties over three or four years at an old mansion house at the Weetwood end of Headingley in Leeds, with perhaps two or three hundred people coming through the door during the night, generally ending around 6am with no bother from the cops.

We played a lot of new US garage and vocal house but we also threw in old acid, techno, hardcore and hip house at key moments to ensure everything remained suitably blurry and twisted out of shape.