After a gloomy first few months of the year, wholesome rays of sunshine are breaking through the bruised skies and lifting moods across the land. Or here in Derry and Toms certainly.
As the fug ascends, I’ve been deep into my musical backlog of bandcamp pickups and vinyl deliveries.
First up, Jim Jupp’s Ghost Box Records released their fifth Pye Corner Audio platter – The Endless Echo.
If sinister dance grooves overlaid with an atmosphere of menace are your jam, get down and pick this up. The heavyweight vinyl is yet another example of how Jim and Ghost Box have an essential place in the marketplace if you’re looking for their specific brand of haunted folk psychedlia and electronic grooves. Which, quite frankly, you you should be.
Yet to take a spin is my signed double live album by Whitley Bay’s finest Moorcock-inspired metaloids, Tygers of Pan Tang.
I have been streaming it though and the new material from their 2023 studio release Bloodlines clearly demonstrates they haven’t lost a step in their steady pursuit of solid NWOBHM stompers. As a vintage 80s greb I really should have paid more attention to the Tygers. Beyond name recognition they never really did it for me at the time but this live set has had me digging back into their catalogue and I think I may have been missing out. I think I always demanded a certain level of darkness, grandeur and epsicosity in my metal, including thrash, but I’ve mellowed with time and these days I just appreciate a great metal banger. And this album delivers.
Over on Bandcamp there have been a surplus of riches these past few months, first and foremost via our occasional co-host and top mucker Imrryr. His latest release By then we’ll be dust and the regret of others (only his third this year – you’re getting slack D) is a sobre doom metal-laced meditation on just how fucked things are for so many people but it contains a hopeful seed.
Characteristically atmospheric and layered this is the first collaboration between Imrryr and Owlripper Recordings in the Czech Republic. As always you can bag Immryr’s entire back catalogue for a snip and, as it happens, you can do the same with Owlripper too. Well worth the shelling out.
Meanwhile, Duck Pond Sailor, all-round top fella, co-host and GNS specialist Graham sent me a mysterious package…
This unmarked and enigmatic cassette, found at a car boot sale, contains some remarkable underground electronica evoking memories for me of sweaty clubs and warehouses circa 1992 or 3. Incredible, evocative and hypnotic. Whatever the true solution to this riddle, you can check out the tunes for yourself and slip into the sweaty, post-E fug and pick them up on Bandcamp.
There might even be a cassette or two left from G’s haul.
Over on a different slant entirely, our favourite Canadian co-host and musical tour de force Allister Thompson is not only closing in on the final stretch with his new novel, but he’s continuing to pursue his wider passions with his second album of old British and Irish traditional favourites – Ancestors
Allister is one of the most eclectic and versatile artists out there, with a catalogue that includes (but is not restricted to) prog, folk, kosmiche organ drone and post-rock. And even some Moorcock inspired atmos…
And Allister will be back in D&Ts soon as we look to tackle another chunky raft of material with the confluence of MM, ERB and Doug McClure!
All that is really only scratching the surface of what’s been in my ears lately (including the latest excellent releases from Hawkwind and spin-off Hawkestrels).
On the podcast front, you’ll have noticed a recent lack of strictly Moorcock-focused content. That’s partly accidental and partly down to recent events ripping up the schedule, but we’ll be back with some MM yakkin’ soon, one which we’ve been building to steadily with all of our IP shenanigans and another that just needs programming back in now that shit seems to be settling down.
Breakfast in the Ruins Podcast 