|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
LP
|
|
FKR 105LP
|
Frozen in time over four decades this 1984 "cyclic incantation" combines electroacoustics, grazed euphoria, industrial aesthetics, sampled salvage, and recycled mechanic folk to score a widely revered dystopian physical theatre performance from the UK's hugely influential Impact Theatre Co-Operative. From a seminal post-punk art-action faction (formed in a Leeds warehouse space alongside Gang Of Four and The Mekons), this apocalyptic prophecy not only cracked avant-garde stage boundaries but provided a captive audience with stunning set design and an incredible broken-music soundtrack before its swan song amidst Poland's 1986 power plant panic. From the sonic workbench of the very same bedsit-situationists that created the haunting 1983 music to The Moomins TV animation comes the eventual isolated music release to this pioneering theatrical spectacle of truly mythical status. The Carrier Frequency (1984) was a legendary stage work that emerged from the collaboration between the influential performance company Impact Theatre Co-operative and cult novelist Russel Hoban. The incantation of Hoban's text voiced in the broken verbiage of a post-apocalyptic broken language and the entranced physicality of Impact's ritualistic performance in a pool of cold dark water printed deeply on those who witnessed it. It reached an impassioned crescendo on the rising score by Graeme Miller and Steve Shill who also performed in the work. The music exploited samples from Hoban's own recordings of the shortwave radio broadcasts which he tuned in as he wrote, helping him order the green phosphorescent letters on the screen of his Apple computer. Shill and Miller mirrored Hoban's channeling in their approach to making the score, following the notion that this was the broadcast of some Central Eurasian radio station doomed forever to circulate fragments of static interlaced with desultory public information broadcasts and "The Record", its only surviving fragment of a lost culture. The score was forged on an 8-track tape recorder sandwiching harmonium and accordion with the output of a digital delay machine that could trap and fragments of audio to be triggered and manually pitched. It is a knowingly crude montage where samples denote fragmentation itself and their reassembly, like Frankenstein's monster, shows the stitches that join the stolen body parts.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
7"
|
|
FKSP 017EP
|
Graeme Miller and Steve Shill's Woodland Band (Parade) consists of homemade electronic and mechanical music heard exclusively via British TV speakers as an eerie backdrop for the Polish-made stop-motion adaptation of the Finnish comic strip. Custom-composed for radically reedited daily five-minute episodes (alongside reconstituted storylines and the narrations/impersonations of comedy actor Richard Murdoch), the short cues written and played by the two Leeds-based post-punk avant-theater composers helped exacerbate the program's bizarre spectral storylines and characters, earning a firm fixture of fear, intrigue and infatuation in the hearts and memories of a slightly confused electro-fed generation. Ticking all the boxes that attract freak-folk enthusiasts and "synthusiasts" alike, the combined efforts of Shill and Miller deployed thumb pianos, backwards tape effects, wooden pipes, and a Wasp synthesizer (the almost-affordable post-punk synth of choice) to replace the original '70s German jazz soundtrack, thus dramatically mutating the tonality of the hundred episode-long saga. Miller and Shill's unique DIY approach follows characters like Moomintroll, Sniff, Snuffkin and the Snork Maiden as they encounter hobgoblins, sand lions, and the mysterious Groke, complete with their individual detuned electronic voices and theremin-esque whimpers. Based on the original sprites invented by Tove Jansson, the modified fuzzy felt figurines were designed by animator Lucjan Debinski at the legendary Se Ma For studios in Poland for German syndication resulting in what many regard as the definitive and most enigmatic version of the story, succeeding further animated adaptations form Japan and Russia. Sharing the same nostalgia and oblique exoticism as The Singing Ringing Tree, The Little Mole, The Magic Roundabout, and other reconstituted imports seen on programs like Granada TV's Picturebox, The Moomins and its synonymous theme tune and sound effects render this limited 7" vinyl release an essential addition to the record shelves of soundtrack collectors, domestic electronic fans and absent bygone tele-addicts as well as animation and design enthusiasts on account of its unique imagery and packaging. Includes an extended take of "Woodland Band" and a never-before-heard cue from the forthcoming Lost Tapes. Like the running lengths of the original episodes, these rare specimens won't stick around for long -- act fast, relax, regress, and rejoice for the return of the Moomin trolls. Custom-made felt backed 7" sleeve depicting original production stills.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
FKR 090LP
|
LP version. Gatefold sleeve. Imagine, if you will, a foreboding homemade electro-acoustic, new age, synth-driven, proto-techno, imaginary world music created on a Portastudio soundtrack for a Polish-made animated fantasy based on a Finnish modern folk tale and created for German and Austrian TV, composed in 1982 by two politically-driven post-punk theater performers from a shared house in Leeds. To even the most perspicacious and adventurous of alternative music fans, the genuine bloodline of this previously unreleased record already begins to sound like an entire record collection in one sitting. It would be surprising if this project's ambitious and exotic credentials didn't tick at least one box on your musical matrix and without one drop of unnecessary nostalgic hyperbole this project already sounds like the perfect fantasy record that you've never heard. From the same social landscape as Gang Of Four, The Mekons, and Impact Theatre Co-operative - armed with a Wasp synthesizer, an ocarina, and a cassette of the Robinson Crusoe music taped off the TV, Graeme Miller and Steve Shill used minimum means for maximum mayhem, instilling over 35 years of dream-like illusory fuzziness and freakiness into the memories of a generation of school age TV addicts waiting for the next five minute fix of outer national fuzzy felt folklore. Collected here, all in one place for the first time, Finders Keepers, in close collaboration with the original composers, present the first-ever full soundtrack release for the UK-specific cult animated series. Finders Keepers take the original homemade micro-melodies and reintroduce them to a musical landscape where fans of vintage electronics, concrète tape effects, pocket percussion, and domestic synths are finally ready to be reunited with the magnetic music of Moominvalley.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
Cassette
|
|
FKRMC 009CS
|
Cassette version. Comes in a marshmallow colored shell. Imagine, if you will, a foreboding homemade electro-acoustic, new age, synth-driven, proto-techno, imaginary world music created on a Portastudio soundtrack for a Polish-made animated fantasy based on a Finnish modern folk tale and created for German and Austrian TV, composed in 1982 by two politically-driven post-punk theater performers from a shared house in Leeds. To even the most perspicacious and adventurous of alternative music fans, the genuine bloodline of this previously unreleased record already begins to sound like an entire record collection in one sitting. It would be surprising if this project's ambitious and exotic credentials didn't tick at least one box on your musical matrix and without one drop of unnecessary nostalgic hyperbole this project already sounds like the perfect fantasy record that you've never heard. From the same social landscape as Gang Of Four, The Mekons, and Impact Theatre Co-operative - armed with a Wasp synthesizer, an ocarina, and a cassette of the Robinson Crusoe music taped off the TV, Graeme Miller and Steve Shill used minimum means for maximum mayhem, instilling over 35 years of dream-like illusory fuzziness and freakiness into the memories of a generation of school age TV addicts waiting for the next five minute fix of outer national fuzzy felt folklore. Collected here, all in one place for the first time, Finders Keepers, in close collaboration with the original composers, present the first-ever full soundtrack release for the UK-specific cult animated series. Finders Keepers take the original homemade micro-melodies and reintroduce them to a musical landscape where fans of vintage electronics, concrète tape effects, pocket percussion, and domestic synths are finally ready to be reunited with the magnetic music of Moominvalley.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
CD
|
|
FKR 090CD
|
Imagine, if you will, a foreboding homemade electro-acoustic, new age, synth-driven, proto-techno, imaginary world music created on a Portastudio soundtrack for a Polish-made animated fantasy based on a Finnish modern folk tale and created for German and Austrian TV, composed in 1982 by two politically-driven post-punk theater performers from a shared house in Leeds. To even the most perspicacious and adventurous of alternative music fans, the genuine bloodline of this previously unreleased record already begins to sound like an entire record collection in one sitting. It would be surprising if this project's ambitious and exotic credentials didn't tick at least one box on your musical matrix and without one drop of unnecessary nostalgic hyperbole this project already sounds like the perfect fantasy record that you've never heard. From the same social landscape as Gang Of Four, The Mekons, and Impact Theatre Co-operative - armed with a Wasp synthesizer, an ocarina, and a cassette of the Robinson Crusoe music taped off the TV, Graeme Miller and Steve Shill used minimum means for maximum mayhem, instilling over 35 years of dream-like illusory fuzziness and freakiness into the memories of a generation of school age TV addicts waiting for the next five minute fix of outer national fuzzy felt folklore. Collected here, all in one place for the first time, Finders Keepers, in close collaboration with the original composers, present the first-ever full soundtrack release for the UK-specific cult animated series. Finders Keepers take the original homemade micro-melodies and reintroduce them to a musical landscape where fans of vintage electronics, concrète tape effects, pocket percussion, and domestic synths are finally ready to be reunited with the magnetic music of Moominvalley.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
7"
|
|
FKSP 010EP
|
The previously unreleased soundtrack 7" single featuring two tracks from the 1983 UK broadcast version of The Moomins. The combined efforts of Steve Shill and Graeme Miller deployed thumb pianos, backwards tape effects, wooden pipes and a Wasp synth to replace the original '70s German jazz soundtrack. Housed in a custom-made felt-backed 7" sleeve depicting original production stills, this limited edition 7" single comprises a very Moomin take on "Silent Night" backed with the more upbeat and aptly titled "Partytime". New age electronics, ethnological influences, soundtracks and DIY punk - all wrapped up in a gigantic fuzzy ball of nostalgia.
|
|
|
|