Category Archives: Miscellaneous

ADULT. – Detroit House Guests (Ghostly International)

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ADULT. have today announced details of a new collaborative project with the musical heritage of Detroit at its heart. “We want this project to bring more positive attention to the city,” says Nicola Kuperus of the duo, referring to the social and economic woes that have left the once proud industrial city ravaged by bankruptcy (Detroit is the first American city to file for the equivalent of a corporation’s Chapter 11 right to creditor protection), poverty and unemployment of a scale befitting a developing nation, not the centre of America’s automotive expansion. “We want this to be a positive, collaborative experience here in Detroit.”

For Detroit House Guests, Kuperus and Adam Lee Miller will invite collaborators into their homes as guests while they record with them. Think of the collaborators as lodgers paying their board with creativity rather than cash. The six collaborators that will work with the duo over the next seven months will be Dorit Chrysler (NY Theremin Society), Shannon Funchess (LIGHT ASYLUM), Michael Gira (SWANS, Angels of Light, Young God Records), Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe (Lichens), Douglas J. McCarthy (Nitzer Ebb, DJMREX, Fixmer/McCarthy) and Lun*na Menoh (Les Sewing Sisters, Jean Paul Yamamoto, Seksu Roba).

The duo will also provide unmitigated access to the collaborative process through various social media outlets, effectively allowing both collaborator and the public access to their Detroit abode.

The resulting Detroit House Guests album will be released on the consistently fascinating Ghostly International label. The project is supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Listen to Nicola Kuperus describing her aspirations for the project via the video message below.

ADULT. Detroit House Guests from ADULT. on Vimeo.

ADULT. – adultperiod.com / @adultperiod

(c) 2014 Mat Smith / Documentary Evidence

Hologram – Walking In The Air

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Hologram are a Paris-based duo I wrote about last year on the release of their debut EP (Absolute Zero).

To celebrate the Christmas season, Maxime Sokolinski and Carla Luciani have recorded a beautiful version of ‘Walking In The Air’ from The Snowman. Full of wintery chill and festive warmth, their take on this Christmas staple is exactly what a cover should be, combining equal parts reverence and originality.

Listen to ‘Walking In The Air’ below or at Soundcloud.

(c) 2014 Mat Smith / Documentary Evidence

A Different Daniel Miller

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A different Daniel Miller. Still from 'Take The Money And Run' (1969, dir. Woody Allen)

A different Daniel Miller: still taken from Woody Allen’s madcap 1969 comedy Take The Money And Run.

(c) 2014 Mat Smith / Documentary Evidence

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An advert for the Isokon buildings, Hampstead, London

This short 2011 BBC post on the future of British social housing includes a soundtracked by ‘The Set Up by Cabaret Voltaire, as well as extracts from pieces by Vaughan Williams, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Edgard Varese and The Jam.

Click here to view the slideshow – requires Flash

(c) 2014 Mat Smith / Documentary Evidence

Depeche Mode – Some Great Reward (billboard poster, 1984)

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Depeche Mode 'Some Great Reward' (billboard poster)

A billboard poster for Depeche Mode‘s Some Great Reward, London 1984.

Still taken from To The World’s End: Scenes And Characters On London Bus Route, a BBC programme first broadcast in 1985. Available on BBC iPlayer.

(c) 2014 Mat Smith / Documentary Evidence

Simian Mobile Disco & Chris Keating – Audacity Of Huge (Wichita, 2009)

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Simian Mobile Disco 'Temporary Pleasure' album artwork

Temporary Pleasure album | Wichita | 2009

Get past the processed vocal that sounds a little like an Adam Buxton pisstake of a Basement Jaxx track and you’ll find Yeasayer‘s Chris Keating namechecking everything from Bill Murray to Peter Tosh, to minidiscs to robot vacuum cleaners. Keating here sounds like a Nineties Bret Easton Ellis’s Patrick Bateman in hyper-privileged savvy metrosexual overdrive (sorbet, high fashion, exclusive social set), only tinged with anguish with the question ‘I’ve got it all / You know it’s true / So why don’t I have you?‘ Simian Mobile Disco sculpt a bleeping, jerky techno pop backdrop to Keating’s tortured soul-pop performance.

Thanks to M for telling me about this one. I’m re-posting this short review since I’m currently writing about the new Simian Mobile Disco album (Whorl) for Electronic Sound.

First published 2012; re-edited 2014

(c) 2014 Mat Smith / Documentary Evidence

Erasure – Am I Right? (ITV Chart Show gossip, November / December 1991)

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Erasure 'Am I Right?' - gossip freeze frame from The Chart Show, broadcast November / December 1991

I was recording some bits and pieces from old VHS tapes last night. On one tape, in amongst a bunch of Erasure performances, I came upon an edition of The Chart Show, the long-defunct ITV show that was the broadcaster’s alternative to the satellite-only MTV.

On this edition was the promo video for Erasure‘s ‘Am I Right?’. I was about to skip straight past it to the ‘live’ performance of the track on the Des O’Connor show that I’d recorded after this on the tape, but then I remembered that The Chart Show always included some pretty random ‘gossip’, usually within the middle eight of any track they were showing the video for. So I fast forwarded to that point and the photo above shows what they had to say about Erasure at this point – namely a small reveal of the venues for The Phantasmagorical Entertainment tour that would hit the road in 1992 and a weird list of animals that Andy Bell would like to keep as pets. I’m not sure, but I’m pretty sure pandas don’t make great pets.

Seeing this in turn reminded me that during a promo for ‘Lay All Your Love On Me’ the following year, The Chart Show gossip was – and this now clearly seems ridiculous – that Andy Bell and Debbie Harry were due to marry. And so you can take Andy’s animal list above with a sufficiently large pinch of salt.

(c) 2014 Mat Smith / Documentary Evidence

Unusual Places To Find A Mute Artist Reference No. 1

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Unusual Places To Find A Mute Artist Reference No. 1

An unexpected mention of Blast First goofballs The Butthole Surfers in the excellent Made In America by Bill Bryson (Black Swan, 1994).

The band are mentioned in passing in a chapter entitled Sex And Other Distractions, describing American society’s simultaneous adoration and abhorrence of sex and references to sex since the time of the Founding Fathers.

Bryson is here referring to the tendency of The New York Times to eschew language with any sexual connotation. The full sentence reads thus:

Butthead or butthole appeared sixteen times, again almost always in reference to a particular proper noun, such as the interestingly named pop group Butthole Surfers.

I’m not sure what’s most surprising about this – the fact that Gibby Haynes and co made it into the hallowed pages of The New York Times, or that Bryson considers them a pop group.

(c) 2014 Mat Smith / Documentary Evidence

At Oxfam, Marylebone High Street, London

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At Oxfam, Marylebone High Street, London

Clearly someone offloaded their Erasure collection… (not me).

(c) 2014 Mat Smith / Documentary Evidence