horsemouth is waiting for the musicians of bremen covers to arrive

ok he tells a lie. it’s here! (and very pleased horsemouth is with it too). 

the islomanes (the lovers of islands) await ‘the island of their hearts desire’. 

horsemouth has temporarily swapped his reading affections to reflections on a marine venus (lawrence durrell). it’s during the second world war, lawrence arrives in rhodes, it has been bombed to fuck and the local population and the german garrison are all suffering from starvation as a result of the blockade. we have been introduced to the supporting cast early - to see if we like them and will be reading on. soon lawrence is having a fine old time. 

it’s a day for birthdays, debussy and john lee hooker for example (and two of horsemouth’s friends) and a czech writer whose name horsemouth has forgotten (wadislav klima? ladislav klima). 

for horsemouth symmetry ceases - he will not now recover it until he is nearly retired. he is within striking distance of his bus pass (now that no one would be caught dead on public transport) but still unfeasibly far from his pension. how far he is from his death he does not know. predicting such things has become a bit more difficult. 

outside it is sunny (though it has rained overnight). horsemouth must get on with getting out there just in case it’s a morning thing. next week probably back to the wen (the seaside towns) (weather dependent). there’s a plan to hold a meeting in the fresh air (outside) - the weather for wednesday evening looks like this might be possible. otherwise horsemouth may well delay it until the week after.

lammas - musicians of bremen volume four released

so this is lammas (and what have you done?). one of the four celtic quarter days roughly midpoint between the equinoxes and solstices. if horsemouth had any wheat to harvest now might be a good time. otherwise let us accept with gratitude the bounty of the summer. 

musicians of bremen prepare to release volume four and have an online event of some sort to celebrate it. horsemouth doesn’t know if howard will get it together to play ‘live’ but horsemouth certainly won’t and they won’t be playing live together (he doesn’t reckon). that doesn’t mean the evening will be a wash out just that it will have to be arranged differently. there’s a video - they’ll release that. 

as usual horsemouth and howard make it to the summer and then discover themselves too knackered and with too little time to do any promotion. they are archetypal artist/ musicians in that having made the thing they have no idea how to promote it. maybe this year (the least propitious year on record surely) they’ll crack it. 

horsemouth is suffering with hayfever symptoms - dripping nose, muzzy head, itchy eyes. in a bit he returns to the cloud forest (to feed the cats - to water the allotment - to go for a walk in the forest - to see if the broadband is back on). 

yesterday (hottest day of the year - phewhatascorcher) horsemouth just couldn’t get started - ok no, the getting up early and going watering worked well, thereafter it all went downhill. sunday he’ll talk to his mum on the phone. monday he is babysitting (to permit another musician to get into the studio). thursday his sojourn in the cloudforest comes to an end. he will probably try to get away to his parents shortly thereafter - trying to avoid direct contact with the rest of humanity as much as possible until he is there. 

he’s started on j.g. ballard’s the unlimited dream company - one of the lesser known ones.

release schedule (more french horror)

yesterday howard came up to visit - they went for a walk upon the common, howard announced he was hungry so they went for a bag of chips (the first horsemouth has had since lockdown). they then sat outside on the front doorstep (er. drinking beer).

they discussed a digital release schedule - it goes a little something like this,

•  18/07 first ‘single’ 
• 01/08 ‘album’ - with live ‘gig’ enabled by the new technology. 
• 15/08 ‘EP’ of covers 
• 29/08 final ‘single’ 
• september/ october etc. various electronicas from howard’s past. 

at various points between these howard will be off on holiday.

horsemouth continues with his investigations into georges franju’s nuits rouges described, in terms approved of by the writer, as a gentle parody of fantomas. our super-villain has a mask, a secret identity, a disguise (as an old lady who runs a needle and thread shop in a run down parade of shops seemingly in the middle of some wasteland), a secret underground lair (full of office workers in gimp suits), a female accomplice in a cat suit, a plot about the hidden treasure of the templars.

there’s not just the movie - its extended rooftop fight scenes with gayle hunnicutt filmed in belgrade because it was cheaper to get the sets built there- or so it seemed until the serbian crew ran off with the 35mm film stock forcing the director to complete with blow ups of the 16mm fim stock they’d been shooting at the same time for the tv series.

ah the tv series l'homme sans visage - 8 episodes (horsemouth has found four online).

the money wasn’t there to film fantomas in period costume with high production values (like franju and the writer jacques champreux wanted) so they made something like the avengers - a 60ies romp. of course it all sounds much better in french.

there are a number of genius franju set pieces - the rooftop fight, a pack of knife weilding robot men advance in unison. later this kind of kitsch becomes irma vep (vampire - get it?) - a parody not just of early film serials but also of cineastes wanting to re-make them.





horsemouth is continuing with his french horror serial investigations - les compagnons de baal and belphigor . it’s all very 60ies doctor who (cheap as chips with lots of talking).




jacques champreux on the right;

 'les compagnons de baal est une mini-série française en 7 épisodes de 50 minutes en noir et blanc réalisée par pierre prévert. elle a été diffusée du 29 juillet au 9 septembre 1968 sur la deuxième chaîne de l'ORTF....'

you may have noticed horsemouth has not commented on politics in a while - because there is none. there’s the ongoing mismanagement of covid, there’s the blue-collar workers being trooped off to their doom in the death factories and death-trains (like the robo-men above) and meanwhile the white collar workers and managers ‘work from home’ and contemplate moving to bermuda, or barbados, or perhaps the countryside. but if we wear masks it will all be ok won’t it and everything (well not quite everything) can go on as just before.

driven (paradise is now)

the latest musicians of bremen release is in fact four songs of electronica from a duo howard was in (grange and bell) in the late 90ies. the duo also played as part of a group in improv settings as 46000 fibres.

it is the the first track that does it for horsemouth - driven (though maybe he will warm to the others as he goes on, see he’s already warming to track 3 - proper). it has that soundtrack thing that horsemouth likes, like from a horror movie about a beach holiday gone wrong - slow descending bass, electric piano, a high violin-like melody line. you see horsemouth could imagine this as a musicians of bremen tune with electric piano and melodica. there are of course similarities between how howard makes music now and how he made it then.

ex track - has that future electro feeling (two one swordsmen?) itchy percussions, an insistent (for insistent read repetitive) keyboard motif.

proper has another nice ominous atmosphere - a sustained pad (like a groaning harmonium or organ), a slightly unhitched heartbeat rhythm, a talk box will persist in talking (kind of like the side guitar in persia when you get to hear it), and there’s a rising horn chant, league of gentlemen/ jon hassel style harmonised stabs.

scarper has that fried 2nd gen thing going on - dancehall style distortion (the bug, rephlex that sort). physical impossibilities of sub-bass. it sounds like the snare rattle is made by the unpeeling of sticky tape. tremendous tensions.

all have that post-rave anxiety thing, not quite fully out of the door into electronica and art music (but on the way). musical sounds dissolve in distortion and return.

howard says: 'one thing to note. they were all improvised live, no overdubs, no coming back to tidy them up. what you hear is what we played. on proper you can certainly hear the influence of miles davis' big fun.'


slightly earlier horsemouth is enjoying his 15 seconds of (sampled) fame, his brush with electronica - he plays on crow road by pressure of speech, he impersonates crows on the electric guitar (inspired by adrian belew) and pays a bluesy side guitar part. he’s on his way out of music. horsemouth doesn’t return to it until 2002. horsemouth enjoyed his sojourn among the machines (howard did too, clearly).

to hold the baby tiger

previously on musicians of bremen:

musicians of bremen have released some tracks from their latest set of recordings entitled the humming.

we've got one download already - mikey (synaptic refuge) - thanks dude.

two dudes horsemouth doesn't know (like complete strangers!) have liked musicians of bremen's page - a young guitarist from holland, and an older experimental music fan from alabama. it was liked over on american primitive guitar (where horsemouth posted it) by another guitar playing american youngster.

horsemouth did an online event (just to enable me to email lots of people about it at one go - 172 people were invited, 22 responded, 9 with going, 13 with interested). the people who clicked like were - well you know who you are. horsemouth put up a link to amarach as a taster for the album (and that got some likes). With more warning and a performance he thinks the musicians could get a better response as they work through their release schedule. still. very pleased overall.

it is important to remember musicians of bremen make music because they like making music, if other people like it this is good. as a kid horsemouth went to the circus, some carneys dressed as clowns were wandering round with a baby tiger that a child could hold for a fiver or a tenner (this was a looong time ago - like back in the early 70ies, before animal welfare). the little girl next to horsemouth got to hold it. horsemouth really wanted to hold it s he pretended he’d lost his ticket. they said they’d come back if horsemouth found his ticket. the child horsemouth never got to hold the baby tiger. horsemouth supposes the message of this is you can’t always get what you want but you can get what you need.

36 minutes in the problem of choral singing as a vector for spreading covid - more of the science (such as exists)

sex and death - there's the equation

today it was a lovely cool morning. normally horsemouth would complain and say a grey morning but after a few days above 30 he’s already enjoying the coolness (wimp). yesterday he walked down to howard’s (via the canal) and the back up again later (up the roads not managing to cut through the park - it was shut early). he passed literally hoards of maskless youngsters out buying coffees (maybe beers even), sunning themselves, cycling, jogging, passing closer than 2m, passing closer than 1m. ah humanity you are beautiful.

on the other hand horsemouth thinks you should be staying socially distanced and wearing facemasks not hanging out in big consortia. horsemouth just thinks the juggernaut of death will keep rolling if we don’t make efforts to prevent the spread of the virus. he knows that, for the young and healthy, the virus is most often merely fucking unpleasant, but having had it before does not necessarily grant immunity. for older (and less healthy) people the virus is considerably more dangerous with a much greater risk of death, long painful hospitalisations and permanent life changing damage.

horsemouth would rather not add it to the list of close personal friends (the flu, the cold) humanity will be taking to the stars as passengers and horsemouth will be dying from.


please try and stay safe says horsemouth the avuncular mule. people like to be in crowds, they like to stroll along the prom prom prom and have an ice cream and a bag of chips. but sex and death there’s the equation.

at howard’s (a brief) an overview of the evolving artwork and discussions of how the various tracks will be parceled out between various release formats. volume one they shoehorned on all the tracks they had recorded and it suffers from this, volume two and three are better in that they are more tightly focused, the question is how to divide up volume four. 

they also had a brief look at play live over the internet technologies (though by this time they had cracked open some beers, had a pizza and were losing focus rapidly). howard was giving it the let’s put the show on right here, right now horsemouth was giving it the hmmm maybe let’s have a few rehearsals first. 

they played through a few songs to check they could actually be played. the results were a bit mixed - amarach/ amharic came out surprisingly well, others less so. horsemouth opined they should make videos. horsemouth shared his most recent discoveries in music lena platonos (great witchy greek electronica) from his friend jeno void in san fransisco, and some old favourites, baaba maal mariama, early pointer sisters, a cover of the doc watson tune ready for the times to get better. 

at some point, and still with beer in the fridge and the nearby supermarket still open, it was horsemouth (for once) who called a halt.

musicians of bremen volume four - finished mastering the tracks

yay the master of the album musicians of bremen volume four is here. in the old days this would have been a literal metal plate for stamping out the record in vinyl (well two of them actually). these days it’s a series of 1s and 0s an a server somewhere.

the guy doing the mastering has done an amazing job. on several tracks instruments seem to have been turned up in the mix when it has been mixed already - how do they do that? and all without sacrificing any quality. guitar parts have emerged from out of the murk. the whole thing sounds well meaty (and other un-PC, rockist metaphors).

the idea (after the howardfest of volume two and the horsemouthfest of volume three) to do something that was the both of them. horsemouth has no idea how they will perform this (nor if they’ll perform it, nor when, nor indeed what spaces actually exist for performance anymore). what is ‘live’ anymore? will deep purple and the blue oyster cult really play the O2 in october? all they can do is release it (and see what happens).

now all that remains is for horsemouth to learn back from the record what he played once a year ago for five minutes. and work out how himself and howard are going to fake those arrangements live.

---------------------------

a friend has achieved french citizenship (woo-hoo). another has achieved portuguese residency (woo-hoo). others have moved to the republic of ireland. another teaches in bucharest. sadly horsemouth (one welsh granny, one scottish granny who was in fact from yorkshire really) has no way out (really it’s that he did not jump soon enough). for all his talk horsemouth is basically indecisive.

fortunately even in the midst of universal tuberculosis humanity still does wonderful things to cheer horsemouth up - like deposing the statue of the slave-trader colston, rolling it through the streets of bristol and dropping it in the harbour.

horsemouth admires the sheer art happening genius of this - respect due. he worries about them in the midst of the infection (but hey they’re young and they’re masked up - which is now a social virtue strange to relate).

a friend has returned to music (welcome back homegirl). others are getting on with their art. another advocates for more food growing in hackney. some take long bicycle rides. some rise like lions from slumber to struggle once again for social justice. others stay home and care for relatives. some care for children. some make music.

you can see what horsemouth is doing here. he’s giving you a heart warming season ending montage. he’s showing you the social machine and humanity (clever little monkeys) busy beavering away (if that isn’t a mechanical and animal metaphor too far).

a howard special

oh look howard has been busy... but dude it's better with the guitar.

the humming of the summer galleries

two years ago musicians of bremen were playing a gig just off brick lane (many of you came). recording is more or less complete for musicans of bremen volume four.

a few days ago horsemouth wandered over to the supermarket in the fields - he bought dishwasher tablets and more coffee (two for five on lavazza red label, unheard of these days but only intermittently appearing). horsemouth is stockpiling coffee (and when they had the offer on tins of kidney beans/ chick peas).

other than that he either hid from the sun or sat in the back garden and read - he’s reading guy de maupassant’s account of his time in sicily (with illustrations of many of the sites and some notes on them by jean-pierre houël). last time he read it he was fascinated by the detail of the human hand that swinburne had given maupassant as a present (in the introductory essay by gesualdo bufalino). this time he was fascinated by the self-administered asylum for criminals at monte aperto and the static quality to the people in houël’s illustrations against the life of the ruins.

in the following days it was even warmer, even less activity, even more reading. horsemouth was listening to musicians of bremen demo CD for volume four but now on shuffle currently the humming of the summer galleries, ah we have reached the giant cumbia version of turn your heater on.

recording diary - recording 2019 is complete

wednesday horsemouth wandered down to howards and howard played him the new version of blue crystal fire - ok horsemouth is convinced (job done - no need for horsemouth to be playing on it).

then howard presented him with a thwocking great boof ...baff.... beat for turn your heater on - this made horsemouth’s job of recording a guitar part much easier because he is no longer the main source of rhythm and timing on the track (which is now some kind of cumbia) - all this was recorded very quickly, organ on the choruses, root note bass, horsemouth’s vocals - done (except for most of howard’s vocals which will be done later).

then they had a general tidy up adding tambourines and shakers to whatever would bear it - the odd acoustic guitar (on pagodas) to warm it up ad pull it together. howard added harmony vocals to ride on (which isn’t ride on really).

they the had a general tidy up for real where howard loaded up the acoustic guitar, the lap steel and the banjolin and horsemouth loaded up with the harmonium in a rucksack and off they went to horsemouth’s. (the bass, the tambourines and shakers he’s going to have to pick up another time, the nylon strung guitar he’s leaving round howard’s).

they then went off in search of beer with the entirely predictable results you know...

horsemouth is now listening to musicians of bremen volume four (demo CD) and has been doing on repeat almost since he got it.

the new version of blue crystal fire rocks (good job howard), horsemouth is most pleased with his bassline on blindspot,

confiding in the evening star just needs some sorting out of the slide guitar parts and the level of horsemouth’s vocal needs to come down, the chorus guitar part to be found, but it’s sounding good already (the only real test).

wonky (the crooked timber) has arrived without the guitars - it still sounds good, ride on (which is not ride on) sounds good, the harmony part howard added should probably come up.

on broadbury down lifts a poem by the reverend sabine baring-gould (with a few tweaks), the question is where to have the vocals begin to get the most atmosphere out of the backing, the first verse first take horsemouth thinks he has got it in the right place (but the second take is in the wrong place), for the second verse the two takes are in the same place but it should probably start later (there’s room). there was also a guitar part that could do with coming back up. the outro needs some work (but there are plenty of possibilities).

the trumpet shall sound (fka. harmonium) - probably lose horsemouth’s ‘snoring’ vocal (or turn it down very low). sounds like an outtake from a horror movie.

on the humming of the summer galleries horsemouth just drivels on bluesily to howard’s humming piece - he should have tried a waltz-time interlude - it’s pleasant enough but horsemouth doesn’t know if it merits its full length.

japan sounds like an outtake from a children’s tv show (featuring morris dancing, japanese shamans and fish).

katy cruel has survived the guitar pile-up. with the guitars thinned down to the steel string and the resonator (ok there are some lap steel swooshes) the rhythm track works. perhaps horsemouth can persuade denise to sing on it, what it probably needs is violin.

primitive american pagodas sounds a bit muffled and lashed together (and strangely like king crimson doing pretty) but really it’s ok, it just needs the ending sorted.

painbirds sounds tough and focused, the organ could probably do with coming up, it’s a good organ sound it doesn’t need to be hidden, the instrumental verse guitar could probably do with coming up a little.

punchdrunk blues sounds great. sand storm - another horror movie outtake. again horsemouth busks along on guitar. at the end the guitar is left to itself (probably cut/fade around 4.24).

turn your heater on (cumbia) horsemouth doesn’t know yet - he doesn’t have all the vocal tracks, the uke is turned down, the melodica isn’t on there yet. it sounds nice and big with the organ on the choruses. (darn it horsemouth forgot to put on the slightly bigger chords for the second go around on the chorus - ah well).

am I born to die? is the one that doesn’t make it. that’s a lot of tracks. nothing will happen with them for a while.

recording diary - 12/08/19 to 16/08/19. tranche two, week two,

day one 12/08/19 .

a slightly grumpy horsemouth - a slightly inconclusive day. while horsemouth thinks turn your heater on is a bit obvious howard’s friends love it - result. so they are taking another crack at recording it, this time to click and this time in a shorter version. horsemouth layed down the guitar part quickly and efficiently, howard will do the rest later, on to the next thing.

pagodas (debussy (mostly)) - it had a certain charm in its first version (but horsemouth muffed the first playing of the main phrase and couldn’t get the ‘sequencer’ guitar arts in sync - though this had its own charm), so time to rerecord it. resonator main, howard’s sweet sounding acoustic on the C minor (chorus), various slide and harmonic parts on the resonator, organ bass and a tremeloed/ violined f-g cluster to add texture. done - once again horsemouth didn’t get everything he wanted (but it’s getting closer) at least he got the sequencer guitar parts in sync this time. the choruses are sounding much better though - that organ, acoustic guitar, slide guitar on the tune mix sounds great.

katie cruel (traditional) - nylon strung guitar to record the main riff recorded to click, bass and picking pattern on the resonator (tuned daddad), a vocal sung to each, then howard’s acoustic added because there was string squeak on the nylon guitar part (which turned out to have a string squeak in the same place also), then the first part replaced by a simplified version of the part, the banjolin on top (sometimes - it’s a bit of a beast and incredibly fucking loud). some slide guitar.

broadly this was the matrix of the song and when it was running in time it all sounded huge but there were various points where the whole timing came unstuck. possibly it can be saved with judicious editing or a bit of copy paste (there’s certainly enough guitar parts to chose from) or alternatively the whole thing could be re-recorded from scratch with just the simplified nylon guitar part and the resonator part. in the cold light of day it all seems sortable. the steps forward - the double horsemouth vocals worked this time (opines horsemouth modestly), howard added some quiet but excellent backing vocals on the choruses, horsemouth left room for a solo this time.


japan (pharoah sanders) - just something quick to decompress at the end of a slightly frustrating day. horsemouth is of the opinion that this actually resembles one, two, three four, five (once I caught a fish alive). he recorded several times round the riff, added the bicycle pump tambourine (er on listening to the pharaoh sanders original he’s added a new element), the wordless vocal, a few single notes on the banjolin (and got howard to sing a vocal). done - it was pissing it down with rain so a bottle of beer from the supermarket rather than a trip to the pub. reconvene on wednesday.

the thing horsemouth has to realise about musicians of bremen volume four is that we are talking about a 2020 release (what even if we were being less ambitious and only talking about a limited number of tunes? yes horsemouth, even then.) the last week of august howard will need a holiday before going back to work - they can get the lion’s share of the recording for the songs they have done by then but that still leaves howard to tidy up edit and mix them in weekends and half-terms (stamina permitting). horsemouth should (of course) shoulder more of the burden.

day two 14/08/19 .

so horsemouth and howard reconvened on the  wednesday to record more for musicians of bremen volume four.

first horsemouth added some tambourine and shaker to japan (it was sounding most morris), howard added another (quiet) harmony vocal and then (at horsemouth’s request) added an improvised melodica part.

horsemouth had brought down rob’s old bass and using this he recorded a part for blindspot trying to get a funky (but not too ostentatiously funky) kind of sound after lunch (cheers howard) they had another crack at recording ride on (happy mondays) this time in 24 bit. they pretty much recorded it as they did before, horsemouth added the tambourines and shakers and some better slide guitar tracks. but when they listened back to their 16 bit demo (recorded with the aid of a bottle of beer each) it was just a better track. (horsemouth may put tambourines and shakers on that one).

howard had a plan to record a track and the slow it down so they got on with recording that track punchdrunk blues - howard recorded a trancey Dm/ D9 riff and (revealing a good midrange voice) some americana-type lyrics. horsemouth then added some banjolin, and acoustic guitar (dropped D tuning) and a rockabilly type guitar at reasonably high intensity.

day three 17/08/19 

turn your heater on - frustratingly no progress here. a slightly hung over horsemouth and howard with a cold were unable to lay down a replacement rhythm track to click (to prevent speeding up on the choruses) nor to play it correctly all the way through. now horsemouth is a big fan of cheating at such moments (that’s what recording to click track is for) his attitude is influenced by even eisenberg’s the recording angel. howard seems to adopt a more purist performance aesthetic (that recording is the documentation of a performance - so cheating is not allowed). ah well.

they took refuge in blue crystal fire - here howard successfully replaced the uke part (originally recorded in 16 bit) and the vocal tracks (impressive). horsemouth then stepped up to the plate and delivered the acoustic guitar part (could’ve been better but it’s in time and in tune, job done) and underpinned it with a goth bass line. there is a uke solo that will stay in 16 bit backed up with some banjolin, there is also a drone made of two e-bowed guitars (that will stay in 16 bit too).

the bass and the guitar are on a long fade up throughout the track so that (in theory) the song starts as a voice and ukulele piece and gradually morphs into something else. (the e-bow drone should probably do this also). the parts are now there anyway.


new jerusalem days has changed - horsemouth recorded two vocals of the reverend sabine baring gould’s poem on broadbury down (sample lyric on broadbury down a gibbet stands). this recollects the murder of grace peard, patience rundle and patience’s daughter mary by the tramp welland and his subsequent execution and display of his rotting corpse in a gibbet there. horsemouth has taken some liberties with the words. he’s not sure they are quite in the right place yet - but they’ll either fix this in the edit or they won’t.

that just leaves confiding... which is proving elusive. at one point howard had the ukulele part replaced and the vocals sung but then they ran into a snag with removing howard’s vocal from the chorus (the better to permit horsemouth to sing on it in his inimitable fashion - it being much easier for howard to follow horsemouth than horsemouth to follow howard). the uke and the guide vocal had been recorded at the same time and so there was leakage between them - when howard’s vocal was pulled out a proportion of the ukulele vanished leading to it sounding weird. despite the work done on the backing vocals howard became dissatisfied and the afternoon’s work went in the bin.

horsemouth (who had been sitting around waiting to record his slide guitar parts mumbling supportively, and, truth be told, already had his nose out of joint from his failure in the morning to record to click) was a little grumpy at this point. but it is, truth be told, the recording schedule he himself formerly advocated, record a demo and then re-record. it is just that now that he is actually doing it he has lost interest in it.

so they gave up and cracked open some bottles of beer.

 they listened to pharoah sander’s thembi (astral travelling, thembi itself, bailophone dance) and discussed doing more co-improvised things in the time that remains to them to record. howard has a recording made on his phone of him and some friends humming in an art gallery as part of a training course (now this is very good).
 --------------

today - recovery of equanimity. monday - back to recording.

recording diaries 2

recording day four

tranche two has been completed. horsemouth has a CD of the demo tracks (er. excepting katie cruel which in the rush to get in a curry and get up the pub was forgotten ).

but an unfortunate discovery has been made - much has been recorded in 16 bit wheras it could have been recorded in 24 bit (don’t ask horsemouth he can’t hear the difference). this means much of it will have to be redone audiophiles.

in a way horsemouth and howard are well ahead in the recording stakes - they know what tracks they are interested in pursuing, they know what tracks (despite initial promise) do not work for them (or rather for who musicians of bremen imagine themselves to be) and frankly horsemouth would relish the opportunity to record some of the stuff he has done already better (and again).

on the day horsemouth recorded wondrous love and and am I born to die? (which by the vagaries of the alphabet are placed at opposite ends of the demo CD). now horsemouth has great fun singing these but he doesn’t know if they are keepers.

 and am I born to die? is just is two guitars tuned open G, horsemouth droning on and the organ droning on (ok at the line waked by trumpets sound three notes are played on the banjolin). it probably needs to be redone with more space. it may be a keeper (it may be portentous enough).

blind spot (what would I say) is one of howard’s - horsemouth just added a little guitar. possibly what it needs is bass. there’s a place where the uke can be pulled out. really it sounds to horsemouth like a song in search of a second part.

blue crystal fire sounds great with the increasing volume acoustic guitar a banjolin part has been added but it’s way to fried in flanger and delay to make sense. a translation of the robbie basho version of the tune.

confiding in the evening star (demo) sounds good (but it will have to be redone) - nonetheless better can be got from it. horsemouth is enjoying the understated lap steel part (there’s a rattle in there that will have to be fixed). both of these two are howard vocal and ukulele pieces basically. there’s an instrumental second half that horsemouth would like to make use of in some way (if he can just work out what it is).

the crooked timber (fka. wonky - ok no, maybe wonky is a better title for it) is a howard slide guitar and vocal thing. like blue crystal fire (and, horsemouth hopes, pagodas) it is a homage to the american primitive guitar scene (this time late era john fahey).

ride on (happy mondays) - well they certainly had fun recording it and (surprisingly) it sounds pretty decent. howard has doubts about it.

new jerusalem days - well this is a portentious monster (and a half). fueled by a giant distorted organ chord and two beats. horsemouth is reasonably pleased with what he’s done here.

storm - this is powered by by a shifting malevolent keyboard part (and sundry john carpenter horror movie noises), horsemouth bodges along as best he can on the resonator. like he said he hated recording this but it sounds pretty fucking good. at the end the keyboard goes off to be malevolent elsewhere and horsemouth plays the change through a few times on (time for a fade). horsemouth is keen to rename this one (maybe howard will let him).

pagodas - this was recorded on the resonator (several resonators). this is horsemouth’s solo guitar piece for the record. he fluffs the first main theme but he thinks it’s fixable (in fact it will all have to be fixed). it has a habanera rhythm running through it which it would be good to get stronger (bass or piano - maybe both). there is a transition into the second part of the tune that’s probably going to have to stay in 16 bit (because horsemouth has no idea how he did it). the 16 bit debacle may enable horsemouth to get the two ‘sequencer’ guitar parts in the correct place (and thus enable him to get rid of the current, and somewhat bodged, ending) and replace it with something arty.

painbirds - (mark linkous) now this sounds like a keeper (mostly because there’s an adequate main vocal performance by horsemouth) and the harmonies work well.

turn your heater on - (keith hudson) now this is great fun (but horsemouth is not sure it’s a keeper). if it’s a keeper it’s a country song and his vocal should probably come up (he modestly opines). rather than risk re-recording the main guitar that should just be left in 16 bit (it’ll live). perhaps they’ll re-record it differently.

wondrous love - one of the horsemouth songs from the day. it will probably bear redoing (but horsemouth’s not sure it’s a keeper).

after that they had a curry to celebrate (thank you curry hut) and then went for a swift pint (in howard’s case two) at the gentrifier’s arms.

recording day three  work proceeded on the new musicians of bremen album, howard added some particularly fine vocals to confiding in the evening star (which they’ve redone for no good reason which now means horsemouth has to redo his parts to get them as good as they were on the previous version - sigh). on the other hand the new vocals are great so it’s progress.

they added an organ part to the end of turn your heater on - well two in fact, a small skanking one (that was endless trouble) and a big churchy one for the end chorus (that was only marginally quicker). the organ sound is a good one though. howard added a melodica part based on the telephone love rhythm (and an echo on it) - that sounds good too.

nonetheless horsemouth was grumpy and out of sorts - hopefully it will shift soon. in any event they have the weekend off for reflection.

recording diaries

horsemouth is done cat-sitting in the hills of walthamstralia and has returned from the forest to his home in the river valley.

the recording goes well - even stuff that horsemouth thought wasn’t happening seems (on re-listening) to have come out ok.

5th august 

horsemouth, successfully (he thinks), put some guitar parts on experiment 2 (currently renamed new jerusalem days - horsemouth added a vocal where he mumbles this) using the resonator and howard’s old acoustic. (ok no there are some problems with the timing that will probably need fixing). horsemouth is a little out of practice with recording to click (his preferred way of doing things). and once his playing is committed to tape playback can be a little harsh on his ego.

next he took a crack at recording pagodas using the resonator (but sadly without click) - it came out very strange. horsemouth will have to give it a listen to decide if he likes it. there’s a strange transition into the second part (the 'sequencer part') and horsemouth couldn’t get the two sequencer guitar parts in sync, so they’re out of sync which has a very brian eno’y effect.

after lunch and a walk horsemouth added a pleasantly messy resonator part to painbirds and a drone organ part (the best he can manage with his limited keyboard skills) in a neil young stylee, howard added a ghost vocal to thicken up the verses and some harmonies on the chorus. (it’s sounding big).

on blue crystal fire they tried the ‘guitar getting louder’ trick - it seems to work ok. ideally they’ll do some duplication of the lead ukulele part with the banjolin. and at this point they hit the wall and had to stop. wonky (now renamed the crooked timber) they pronounced finished and complete.

6th august

having worked on pagodas the day before horsemouth was intending to firm up the rhythm track with a piano playing the bassline habanera style (but ended up adding some chimes instead because the piano sound was a bit rubbish). they then got bogged down in new jerusalem days (horsemouth adding a slide part and a tapping part to the end of the song) but as they thinned it out sense began to emerge from the murk.

then ride on (by the happy mondays) as a waltz - howard recorded the main vocal and ukulele together, horsemouth added the bass drum (a large well-padded chair beaten) and the hi-hat (a bicycle pump) and a woodblock (a pair of birkenstocks). he then added the banjolin, a side guitar (somewhat uninspired) and an acoustic guitar (in dropped d). maybe it needs organ (perhaps the kitchen sink). it becomes somewhat discordant at the end (having been really tuneful until then).

finally with howard singing and horsemouth playing guitar they laid down turn your heater on (today they’ll probably add organ to it) to this they added a ukulele part and more vocal tracks including two by horsemouth - a mid-range one, and a higher one where he tried following howard up into the upper registers (not that successfully). horsemouth added the telephone love rhythm at one point (but he’s not sure if it needs it). the rhythm track is fairly tough that helps stick it together.

finally they had a re-listen to an instrumental horsemouth had struggled to come up with anything sensible to do on the guitar on (using the resonator) - but this time it sounded almost coherent. a good day - now perhaps a lie down before horsemouth goes back to do it all over again.

please pardon horsemouth (he’s a little slow today)

please pardon horsemouth (he’s a little slow today). he was out drinking last night and so today he’s feeling a little fragile (and typing very badly). he’s had his coffee. he’s had his shower. he really has no excuse.

on the positive side horsemouth was up early and has spent the morning learning what he thinks of as the sequencer part on debussy’s pagodes (hopefully transposed correctly to a different key). it arcs up and down (in a 12/8 sort of way). he thinks he has a way of recording it to click by using the habanera like vamp of the first two bars and the offbeat/ onbeat? f-g cluster as a constant.

he’s got a non-standard tuning bflatfdggd than enables him to do this. he's playing it n the resonator at the moment.

he’s worked out a way of playing the sequencer part in two parts (but not yet a way of playing it all at once) and he’s worked out some pseudo-sudanese runs to go with it. that just leaves - well er... quite a bit really.

perhaps he can get it done and recorded  for the next musicians of bremen album

sail away ladies (wonky)

•  

horsemouth has just spent a little time listening to the new tracks for the next musicians of bremen album - it’s all sounding pretty good, especially howard’s new track wonky - a wonky sounding slide guitar and vocal piece that’s kind of like late era fahey singing a ballad.

a rough list (horsemouth loves lists) would be;

• blue crystal fire - ukulele and voice (now with added acoustic guitar and e-bow drone). a now somewhat unsettling cosmic encounter in the woods. 
• katie cruel - acoustic guitar and voices (now with added lap steel guitar). on your way to a somewhat unsettling cosmic encounter in the woods. 
• painbirds - acoustic guitar and voices (now with added resonator guitar and melodicas on the instrumental verse). beautiful (and somewhat cosmic) pain. 
• confiding in the evening star - uke and voice and various slide guitars (melodica on the second half). don’t know what this is yet (but it’s sounding pretty good). 
• experiment keyboards and voices (lots of them). sounds to horsemouth like popul vuh. 

there are others 

(and there are other contenders) 

and there are others that will be made as the process goes on .

day 3 of the recording sessions for musicians of bremen volume 4

finally a day that doesn’t go so well.

to howards trip hop instrumental sitar horsemouth adds a guitar part similar to the reverend gary davis’s talking blues, a slide guitar part using an open D6 (dadfsharpab). he then adds a part in an open Dm6 (dadfab). he starts out full and thins it out towards the end. hopefully that’s enough to be working with.

howard has a john carpenter-ish instrumental to which horsemouth entirely fails to add anything useful (first on slide guitar and then on the resonator) - it has variable bar lengths i.e. it changes when it wants to (that’s its charm), horsemouth is reduced to a bad-tempered sweaty heap.

they then try to add a lap steel part to confiding in the evening star and it’s fine until the first drop (and thereafter horsemouth has lost the plot) but howard has added a really good melodica part that lifts the whole thing from this point.

thereafter they go for a walk down to the beach of self-expression through the sun-fried streets, on the way back they attempt to call into the gun for a pint (but it is busy), so they retreat to howard’s flat with a few bottles of beer and listen through a few songs, horsemouth attempts to convince howard of the virtues of hissing of the summer lawns - of self-conscious story telling songs, songs in a conversational register. horsemouth blows out not just one but two gigs (sorry lou, sorry matthew) eventually he loads up as many of the guitars as he can and heads off for home.

 he floats in liquid darkness.

recording musicians of bremen volume four

howard had posted over demo tracks (vocals and ukuleles) for  blue crystal fire and confiding in the evening star, both of which are sounding good and fried in reverb and delay.  there’s also a song called blind spot (for the moment) and some kind of drone thing called experiment. and there are loads of covers that could be done painbirds, turn your heater on, katie cruel, on the road again, even rain and snow could get a re-lick.

ok day one (sunday 26th may) of the horsemouth's guitar and vocal recordings

the tracks so far;

• katie cruel (taken a little fast truth be told). two guitars (tuned standard and daddad), a vocal each howard and horsemouth. (perhaps a little lap steel next). 
• confiding in the evening star. howard vocals and ukulele, horsemouth slide guitar, vocals on the chorus. not there yet (but coming along nicely). as an original song it will take a while longer to get it together. 
• blue crystal fire. ukulele and vocals howard. horsemouth, some tracks of e-bow guitar (a bit meh to be honest), acoustic guitar following the chords about (sightly discordant) sounding most elegant but a little darker than the original. once horsemouth had got a take down howard could hear the sense in it. 

day two (monday 27th may) horsemouth was round howard’s recording again. 

on sunday horsemouth had brought down the lap steel - he played two parts call and response on katie cruel with this and then they added a track of clapping to attempt to firm up the rhythm. (violin would be nice).

for confiding in the evening star horsemouth faked up an intro (based on the chorus) and this led him up and into the verse, he then got howard to extend out the song by another verse (they had not taken the precaution of recording it to click and so could not just copy and paste verses round the place) and essentially reprised the introduction through it. hence (for once) a more complicated structure than usual. again violin would be nice.

 the one they began fresh was painbirds

this they recorded to click - horsemouth did the guitar part on the paesold nylon strung guitar, then some vocals, howard did some vocals and then a double-tracked melodica part for the instrumental last verse. it’s a bit slow (but it might be better slow). horsemouth then doubled up some of the guitar with some from the resonator. it was sounding pretty decent by the time they had it done. (erm. violin maybe).

probably back to work saturday

confiding in the evening star

such was the spare title howard had sitting around - he also had a new song - horsemouth combined the two but he is worried that he may have done to much ‘work’ to it and clouded howard’s original intention.

they have at least one more rehearsal (friday) before the gig (saturday, waterintobeer) to get everything up and running and ship-shape and bristol fashion.

 the slide guitar makes sense to horsemouth but he is still in a quandry about the standard tuning guitar (he normally takes two guitars so he can avoid doing any onstage retuning) - he’s been using howard’s old acoustic (which is a bit buzzy and sitar-like for some tastes), horsemouth wants to leave it droning on with the e-bow on it while he plays the slide but that needs it, at a minimum, to have a metal cored d-string. he may put one on one of his nylon strung guitars and give that a try.

for blue crystal fire (re-imagined by howard as a waltz) he’s abandoned (at least for now) the discordant strummed guitar (‘have you been listening to sonic youth?’ asked howard in horror) and is just concentrating on playing a theremin-like e-bow line (whilst trying not to put howard’s off).

once they’d rehearsed for a bit they went for a walk down to the thames and ate some rice and drank a bottle of beer.

horsemouth then went home and watched seraphim falls a revenger type western which (unlike the revenant) fails because it is unwilling to show its central characters in anything other than a good light. by the time angelica huston is wheeled on (literally) it’s all gone badly wrong.

the night before he’d watched kurosawa’s i live in fear broadly this is a conventional japanese family drama - except that the family patriarch wants to move the family to brazil to escape the impending nuclear war. the family don’t want to go - in the end he’s in a loony bin looking up at the sun believing it’s the earth on fire.


horsemouth has found himself singing the confiding in the evening star  chorus - so he thinks it's a runner.

horsemouth puts up links to two promising american primitive projects - one of which features e-bow on acoustic guitar (but very subtly applied).

‘who is this fine fellow, playing fine devilish tunes?’ (ornithology, death and despair in south london)

horsemouth is back from his mission.

how did it go? it went well (thanks for asking). thanks to lou, annie, myk, zoe and nick for coming out, thanks to martin howard and the others at water into beer for putting him on. (special thanks to lou for getting him the gig).

martin played first - ornithological themes (well ornithology, death and despair), e.g. at the ornithologist’s arms (a song of the type imaginary boozer). then he played as part of a duo as S+M, tainted love, you’ve got the love big songs of emotion ably sung.

then it was horsemouth’s turn.

after some internal debate he opened with the gospel blues satan (your kingdom must come down) - it took him a while to find his feet with this one (largely because he’d started too fast and forgotten to pick up his slide and... well because he was out of practice not having played since last friday 13th). basically this tune functions as an opportunity to talk to the audience and to see if they will sing (as usual many of the audience were better singers than horsemouth).

then (if memory serves) horsemouth played his ‘mercifully brief’ slide guitar instrumental ‘when the faun met alice’, then (swapping to the nylon strung guitar for reasons of pseudo-variation) the werewolf (an opportunity to see if the audience will howl like wolves), he then briefly digressed on folkways records and michael hurley. thence the devil (which horsemouth can now only hear with the bass on it, or rather he notices that the bass is not there) followed by an explanation, then worldes blisse (a chance to make the audience miserable). essentially these are the bedrocks of horsemouth’s set.


then (with a little time on his hands) gentleman john got an airing (this time it went well - the previous time it had been an impossible torture), crisis in the credit system got its first airing and horsemouth played mark linkous (sparklehorse)’s painbirds (in keeping with the nights themes of ornithology, death and despair). he then indulged in some onstage retuning - his least favourite thing - and finished with her hair like some glittering gold aka. la fille au cheveux de lin a debussy piano piece mistranslated onto slide guitar in open g tuning (again a first).

horsemouth tried to flog some CDs (but no one was interested). he retired to the back of the room to drink beer.



last on - bity booker - imagine joan baez as your nursery school teacher singing you songs about parrots, parokeets and sparrows, ok it wasn’t all ornithology, there was a song about a pony and a song about a mouse and she ended up with malvina reynolds’ (not pete seeger’s - as she pointed out) little boxes. she has a great voice - capable of going from a loud yet intimate whisper to a wide vibrato, and an admirably clear and practiced guitar style. horsemouth was impressed.

then the train back home and a walk and a falafel wrap as his reward.

don't tell the d-o-g

don’t tell the d-o-g but horsemouth is breaking up the b-a-n-d.

the cockerel (howard grange) is safely back in england (probably down in pop(u)lar at this very moment), horsemouth (as you know) is the mule, or donkey, or donkeymule or whatever, the d-o-g and the c-a-t are who they say they are.

but the d-o-g and the c-a-t do not get on (in fact they are barely talking). this is why horsemouth has decided to break up the b-a-n-d.

horsemouth will probably reform the b-a-n-d in england as just himself and howard (though he may musically collaborate with the c-a-t in future), the d-o-g is, in any event, off to the k-e-n-n-e-l-s later on today (probably), that was always the plan anyway. the d-o-g is only a young feller (and a hothead), the local dogs seem mostly to sing I’m the king of the castle, but the d-0-g’s song seems to be you’re not the boss of me.

horsemouth hoped that if he could just get everyone in a room talking then the reformation would naturally follow but it was not to be. 

horsemouth knows that in other cultures the musicians of bremen are composed differently - a badger rather than a dog say - and indeed in many tellings of the story they are not even on their way to bremen.

actually the d-o-g is probably not gone until monday.

horsemouth was bored so he got out the time machine...

one year ago horsemouth and howard got john clarkson's harmonium out of storage (and so hence the current musicians of bremen album). two years ago horsemouth was moving his worldly possessions after several happy years down in langdon park (thanks to everyone who helped). three years ago he was buying the biography of karl krauss: apocalyptic satirist in oxfam in walthamstow. four years ago he was going to a meeting to be persuasive (he can't remember what about to be honest or if he succeeded or failed). five years ago horsemouth was hiding out in the countryside at his folks and reading balzac's a murky business. six years ago he was with kevin davy watching people going off to the london olympics down the greenway. seven years ago he needed a bass amp and a means of getting it to the gig for a snatch foster band gig - iona obliged with the amp (and an awesome beast it was too), john clarkson drove (cheers dude).

hmmm - reincorporation has been achieved - that seems to be a good place to stop.