Here's to lots more dots: The Pale Blue Dots

I received a copy of Lots of Dots through the post the other day. It’s the new (long) player from The Pale Blue Dots. Actually it’s the first long player from The Pale Blue Dots. It was good to see that the thinking, the talking and writing has finally paid off. I was beginning to doubt whether any of this would ever surface and run its rings around the world.

If you don’t know already – because these things get around town – by word of mouth, internet ravings and rumours and releases – The Pale Blue Dots are Huw ‘Bunf’ Bunford and Richard Chester. Richard is one of my best friends – is my best friend. Good friends. We’ve spent some real good times together and I’ve always appreciated his musical ear(s). Bunf was known to me through the Furries – and that pretty much makes him a musical genius – there hasn’t been a band like the Super Furry Animals before or after. They captured that freeing of sound the 90s let in – briefly combining rock and roll with psych and soul all topped with chemical beats and treats. 

It was Welsh independence writ large for the masses with guitars and furry suits. And here it is again - without the suits but just as experimental.

As you know – I have had access to part of The Pale Blue Dots for some time and have been raving and raging about them for two years now. Ever since Richard sent me Additional (which is yet to see the light of day) a tune all awash with Jeff Lyne, flourishes and strings I have felt this band had a finger somewhere on the pulse of rock n roll (that's the widest definition of rock n roll - you could just call it music) So where to begin? I should do some sort of plodding Mojo review – two paragraphs and a press release. Give four stars and bang it up. But I think it deserves a little more praise than that – but then I am a bias fucker.

This is not an extension of the Super Furry Animals. It isn’t even a solo project – it’s a bit more complicated and I think this first long player reveals it. Its textures and hooks and riffs and rolls coupled with openness and playfulness. It’s the pleasure of listening.  It’s clear that there is an interaction between the two worlds – Bunf’s is different to Richard’s but that shared connection – that understanding is evident in the straight pop boogie of Devastation through to the wonderfully evocative Nebraska.

You can’t quite put your finger on it. It isn’t conceptual – yet there’s a thread running through it. We have references to West Coast psychedelia (Slow Reaction), through soundscapes and Asian melancholia mixed with the funky drummer (Tokyo Hotel Silence or Silent Tokyo Hotel – which had my daughter smiling  - she just loved the idea that the two pieces were essential the same with muddled words) coupled with ramalama Bolan/ Bowie infused boogaloo (Devastation) eighties production and early synth experimentation (Look into my Eyes)  to the wild plains and haunting twangs of the prairie as dusk falls (Nebraska).

And it all works together. From start to finish it evolves and lingers – causually working its way from the short term memory to the long term.

Its an experiment in getting inside your head.

Guitars are distorted and loud, it's full of clangs and chimes  - then things are suddenly strummed and simple – they are sounds in themselves. And you can see that both of these fellas love sound. You can see that they 'get' sound. They get down to 'sound'. (The Sound of the Crowd)

I guess we get a glimpse of what’s inside their heads. It’s quite dark at times. You might keep it upbeat but No Motivation references that sinking slide into busily doing nothing but sleeping. Put that with Slow Reaction – which from its opening piano riff lodges itself firmly in your brain and you’ve got a band struggling to articulate and do.

Except it isn’t.  Because here’s an album full of potential pop hits. Produced by Cian at the Strangetown Studios - there's a lovely space and groove to it all. I mean that I really do. As I said previously these are older fellas writing music for the masses.  There’s a touch of Nilsson, of Alex ‘Skip’ Spence, Jeff Lyne (and his dark eyes) Spector and early electro albums and of course if you really want to you'll hear a nod to the Furries. Bound to - really. Oh and Daf is playing drums.

It's a wide-ranging album and whilst the focus will be on Bunf - this is double labour of love - for both members. It surprises and asks for a response. When I first heard Reach for the Keys – I didn’t get it. It seemed so overblown and vibrating with empty halls and the echoes of children’s voices – with a rolling nursery rhythm beat. But as with all these tunes they have legs – they have feet – they grow. And it's haunting opening - sort of reminiscent of the Tales of the Unexpected - Roald Dhal making earworm pop - soon lodges itself in your brain. Bunf's simply delivery coupled with found sounds and talk - after a few listens I was happily singing along.

Aquarium could be the missing link between the last SFA album and these Pale Blue Dots. Creeping closer now it gives you the creeps. Bunf's vibrato is quite extraordinary. There's a fragility amidst the lush orchestration - as Bunf dazzles his partner with his 'Admit One Extra' pass and get's her in for 'free now baby'. Meanwhile Richard's layering the strings like the bastard son of Barry. Super continents collide my friend.

And what a great collision this is. It's good to have Richard and Bunf together.

You know I was worried about Lots of Dots dark unnerving cover – a little girl slaughtered as a lamb sits by her side. I mean what should I be reading into that? Or it could just be a broken ornament – found in any home across the land and tipped over through excitement and stupidity. You know it’s just a cover  - but there's an undercurrent to it - a subtext. Something which rings out on this (way to short) long player - take Look in to my Eyes - it's all in a look. Concentrate. Something's lurking in this song - something's lurking in this album and I like it.

You know we might miss the Super Furry Animals and I’m not holding my breath for a reunion – although it would be great.

But let’s give this credit.

Let’s give them all credit.

They can all write fucking quality tunes - Gruf, Cian, Daf, Guto and Bunf – with each other - apart - or here with Richard Chester.

I hope this release is the start of something new. I know there are more songs  - lots more dots - absolute crackers - but as first releases go - every tune is great in its own right.  And if me and my kids are singing these songs in the car - then I know you will be too.

They're having a blast. So let's join in.

Lots of Dots is released on StrangetownRecords on November 3rd.

The Pale Blue Dots are in session on Monday on Marc Riley's show from 7.00pm

You can listen to The Pale Blue Dots here. 

A new song by The Pale Blue Dots

I haven't written in a long time - it's that time of year.  I'm thinking of changing the whole thing around. So hopefully expect over the summer months a rage of interviews with a range of bands. 

Until then here is the new track by The Pale Blue Dots. You remember them don't cha? Bunf from the Furries and Richard Chester - making sublime sounds in studios.  It's on Radio Cyrmu tonight on Lisa Gwilywn's show and hopefully we'll be seeing a little more (re)action from The Dots over the coming months. 

Things have been slow to say the least - but I think according to more sources that the wheels are back on and we might actually see a long player and possible live dates this year. 

Until then here is the wonderful psychedelic ear worm that is Slow Reaction. 

https://soundcloud.com/the-pale-blue-dots/slow-reaction

We all want to join The Pale Blue Dots

You know how things seem to turn out strange and wonderful – how worlds collide and odd things happen? That’s been my walk through the world of music – down those streets that we slip through I’ve chanced and happened across music that shakes the very soul. That resonates and runs rings around (the world) and me. And throughout these journeys into sound there’s been constants - obviously a brother hip to the sounds of the underground has always brought new sounds to this London home but there’s been a friend from way back when who’s always been making art maaaaan.

Always had a tune up his sleeve. He’s got a whole load more these days.

He’s in The Pale Blue Dots.

You’ll want to join them by the end of this.

Now imagine a chance encounter. A slip of fate that brings him and a super furry animal together in 2013. In cold viewing rooms these headz imagine a return and an extension of pop pop pop music. A new Wilson brothers with a dollop of boogaloo, a Spectorish vision with a ramalama attitude.Well that's how I like to imagine it. I guess it was less romantic - you know just conversations and that.Extra expressos and hellos to the catering staff as words about music flowed. So he’s wringing out these orchestrated beauties from the grey streets of London and Bunf is laying siege to soundscapes and strumming – something’s going to happen – do get me?

They’re both an interesting bunch of groovy fuckers. That’s a given. Eclectic and knowledgeable – and that’s what seeps into their music.

https://soundcloud.com/the-pale-blue-dots/additional

You see - they start swapping tunes – fragments – pieces of this and that – strings and guitars – ooh ooh oohs and la la las. They start making music these two men of the world. They start making music with a nod to the past and an eye on somewhere else. It’s not about global superstardom – it’s about honesty and integrity. It’s about making that transition to shed the cocoon and fly fly fly.

For a day at least.

To be honest it all came out of the (pale) blue. I received an email. There was a track Thermos. It was all harsh and electric. Two chords and mumbles. It was great like that. Bunf wielding the ‘goldie’ – that heavy rock Les Paul ethic. All angular and growls. It seems the Super Furries have been up to lots – independently from one another but somehow connected in that love of the different. I mean they haven’t released an album in five years – or so- but there’s a connection in what they are all doing in that time away from one another.

And now it’s Bunf’s turn too.

He’s in The Pale Blue Dots now. So suddenly I was party to this transformation – this beginning – I’ll hopefully be there at the end too. What I like about this band – is that they’re my age – you know don’t expect leather jackets and angst ridden lyrics. It’s just mining something else – like I said – a nod to the past with an eye on something else. And each day I would awake with a message from Richard – an idea here – a first take there - and then another and then the gates opened and tunes were and are winging across wires in the world to rooms and headphones leading to smiles and tears.

http://soundcloud.com/the-pale-blue-dots/its-alright

They’ve put them up – on soundcloud – they say ‘work in progress’. I guess they are – Richard likes to work a tune – play around with the sound. I swear Richard’s always been a writer – making music – just letting it flow. I’ve sat in bedrooms in Scunthorpe and played the very guitar he’s writing with - the one  Bunf rates – it’s always had tunes hidden inside it - Mick's guitar. And it was always on the cards that we'd be singing his/ their songs -  then as it is now – except he’s holding a running flush this time. This is not smalltime.

http://soundcloud.com/the-pale-blue-dots/beetroot

And I said it before, I was a late adopter to the sounds of the Furries – Paul turned me on to them – this subversive bunch of Welsh psychedelics, wizards and ravers. Here was a band that was writing music for the future. I don’t really see how they got all that Britpop pigeon holed coverage – SFA were doing something differently then and still are now. The Super Furry Animals should have been bigger than Oasis – they’ve got the tunes and the attitude (and the furry suits)

And that’s basically what you get in all the The Pale Blue Dots songs, well apart from the furry suits.

They’re doing something differently to what people expect. As I said it’s got a touch of the Nilsson about it – all Brandy Alexanders and nods and winks - late night sessions - white outs and floorboards. What could turn out bombastic has simplicity – and a groove sitting under that Wilson percussion and (good) vibrations. It’s a Lennon and McCartney vibe writ large in 2013 – but infused with Alexander ‘Skip’ Spence, Joe Meek and Bolan. The list goes on and on and on - they listen to music much more than me. This is not a parody – an attempt to weld some sixties aesthetic onto modern living.

It’s a bunch of good tunes. That a band can play.And you can sing.

I’ve lived with these sounds – these songs for a while. And believe me there are plenty more out there/ in there. You see a test of a tune is whether the kids will sing it. It’s that simple – and they’ve got a huge stomping rocking and rolling boogaloo of tune in ‘Devastation’ – it’s a Bunf and Chester triumph. They haven’t put that one on Soundcloud yet. You should pester them to do so. Because we sing it on a daily basis. We shout it out in the car.

I’ve got a feeling it’s going to be a smash.

So what I’m saying is have a listen. There’s a whole heap of stuff on the soundcloud site. Recordings of generators next to piano stompers, reckless drumming and heartfelt strumming.

It’s a gas maaaan. This is all going to be word of mouth. You hear it. You like it. You tell somebody else. Eventually someone will stop you in the street and tell you about The Pale Blue Dots.

It's just going to get around (from town to town)

http://soundcloud.com/the-pale-blue-dots

Sounds from the overground - solitary rants from the listening man No.5

I've been flagging lately - illness rolling around these bones  - you know the chills mutiplying - losing control. 

So in order to keep some semblance of writing happening here - it's a short post - i'll be updating very soon - longer and possibly diving back into the recording process and dates and stuff. 

So here you are then - happy new year - (class) war is not over. 

I have been spending far too much time making compilations of Euros Childs, Jonny, Teenage Fanclub and The Well green

Stuart Kidd is a beautiful musician. Honest, creative with songs to sing along too. You should look up his band camp site. There’s a wealth of lovely things there – a genuine wealth.

I came across The Wellgreen.

Euros continues to produce the most consistently beautiful sounds you could ever wish for and I have decided that next year I’ll interview him for this blog. A new twist in 2013. He doesn’t know it and hopefully it will be as good as my J Mascis interview conducted when I was mere youth. It was five words long. Bloody grungers.

I have listened to EPMD Never Seen Before exiting from the workplace – because I’m street like that.

Students I once taught have provided soundtracks to my waking hours – you all should check out Clouded Judgement, Beatmasta Bill and Monkeysteak.

Inkrument have failed to follow up a seminal long player. Pull your fingers out fellas.

The Super Furries have emerged on the periphery of my being.

Richard Chester is the new Brian Wilson or Spector or Joe Meek – take your pick really. We love him in this house.  

I missed The Fall, Orbital, The Stone Roses, The Primitives, and The Beach Boys this year.

My brother continued to see Adam Ant and saw The Stone Roses.

I’ve played Denim a great deal.

Summer Special is my No.1 album of 2012

I have avidly listened to Duglas’ recommendations on Twitter.

I have tuned into FNOOB – and got down to the Orb Sound System. 

I am pondering whether to get a Primal Scream ticket for March. 

I've got two music books to read - one called Telling Stories the other all about the mavericks in the independent scene from 1975 til 2005. 

I bought five cds for one pound yesterday – I am currently playing Simian Mobile Disco’s mixed set for Bugged Out. It is very good – bass and bleeps. 

I’ll play mine if you play yours.

The snow came tumbling down last month. I was out and about getting wet, wet, wet as the metropolitan city ground to a halt and I ended up staying over at a top soul brother’s residence.

Not getting home to the kids.

I guess there’s a presumption that because it’s the city you can get straight home – that somehow the snow won’t wreck the plans of commerce and pleasure. But it does and it will. So stood drinking and discussing George Harrison’s Electronic Sound and the reverb set ups created by Larry Levine – we didn’t notice that the snow was settling that little bit faster and traffic was slowing up and coming to a standstill – The Pineapple can have that effect. It’s a wonderful public house The Pineapple – a stone’s throw from the Imperial War Museum.

Back in Scunthorpe – getting home meant a walk if it snowed – wet trousers and cold feet – falling over and falling in love as you negotiated the ice around Britannia Corner and over the railway bridge. Through bends and drifts hands held and helping hands. Here it was wet concourses and low level announcements – basically a mild apology but a certainty that you’re not getting home.

No headphones – just cold ears and the beers that I’d drunk swishing inside – well cider – you know me – I am a cider drinker.

But as we were wont to do in that flat – we played music. Not overly loud – you know we’re in our forties – we get on with our neighbours – we’re not a bunch of ravers – diddlee di di sharing tunes and experiences late into the night with brandy and cigarettes. Over the years I have found myself in rooms with friends playing songs that cheer the heart as the head begins to hurt. Those morning moments that lead to a find that stays with you forever – where once it was 7 inch singles revolving on stereos or 12 inches on 1210s – it’s mostly digital digging that we’re doing – but with the same outcomes.

Richard played me Nilson. I played him Euros Childs.

We marvelled at the simplicity of music to bring us to our knees. It seems that music has a habit of running at you head first in the dark – when it’s different outside – when the curtains are drawn and you know you should be sleeping. It’s that hazy appeal as your head fights the inherent tiredness creeping into your bones but you feel alive as the tune brings a rush of energy sweeping through those old [and in this case cold] limbs. And this post could be about so many of those late moments – in cars, in clubs, on tapes and vinyl as people played tunes that would you would never tire of listening to.

But this one is about the mamas and the papas.

Paul and I used to travel to Leeds and other northern towns in search of heady inspiration. And as we would often be found waiting – after Kaleidoscope Pop had shut its doors – for a milk train to take us back to the old town we would sometimes end up at kind soul’s house. Two Scunthorpe waifs and strays – avoiding the return to the industrial streets and skies. That house was invariably on Harold Avenue – the home of pop – past the menacing streets of Sutcliffe’s stalking to inviting cups of tea – or take out bottles and Big Star’s Third or Dinosaur’s first. We sat and talked with like minded fellows about this and that – as tiredness crept in but the tunes would flow and somehow I knew I would make it in on time to college the next day – because I had heard ‘Kangaroo’ and that would keep me going – as it still does.

But Ian of Pale Saints placed a simple greatest hits record on the downstairs dansette – and out of the speaker came that simple strum and build of Twist and Shout. Yet this wasn’t the cacophony of Lennon and company in full leather and volume. No this was all delicate chiffon and corduroy and harmony and yearning. I don’t think at that point I had quite got the mamas and the papas – but in that sleep deprived moment – it worked. And I haven’t been able to escape it since.

The simplicity in slowing it all down and turning that twisting and shouting into romance and wanting – as John Phillips tells us that she’s got him going – like she knew she would. And the harmonies build and fall and lap over one another until we’re wrapped right inside the song. That walk for the train as the dawn exploded in Leeds was a joyous one as Mama Cass rang in our ears and our hearts.

Whenever I’m stuck as to what should come next on a compilation tape [ok – CD – we don’t make tapes anymore or should it be some sort of ‘playlist’] then this seems to worm its way on to it. Too be honest it’s obvious why. Those late night moments hang around – I find I can’t do them anymore. I mean it took days to recover from my night ‘on the town’ with Richard and small children waking in early hours means that listening in daylight can be hard enough.

So here’s to the beauty of one person playing something different to another. It’s called sharing and the world is a better place for it.

I like The Beatles – I don’t know whether I love the Beatles

She said John’s already up there – he’s waiting for you.

I think she said he was sitting on the bed. Richard and I were kind of freaked by that – but that was Richard’s mum for you – had a turn of phrase and smile and a welcome for the strays who would wander through that home – up the stairs and to the record player and television that resided in Richard’s room.

He first introduced me to the Beatles – not that I hadn’t heard of them already but by the tail end of the 1970s and the new beginnings of 1980s – The Beatles had kind of gone right out of fashion. They seemed to be from another era – another time back then. The dissipation of all things Beatles had happened – you could pick up a set of Rock n Roll 1 and 2 for a couple of quid in Woolworths – there was no awe. And to be honest there shouldn’t be – people get shot because of that. So it was through Richard’s record player that I got to hear the hits of the past, the obscure tracks and Revolution Number 9 in the dark. Because playing music should be exhilarating and communal at times – the [in] sound of the [in]crowd.

Paul and I once created a ‘horror’ experience that had us playing a Japan b-side – it was Burning Bridges [if you want to try it yourself] at 16rpm as you entered a room full of shock. You could do that on record players then – slow it down – speed it up – separate the sound – switch the speaker – get to understand sound.

Richard understood sound.

Still does.

He would play me The Beatles – point out a harmony, a sound, a beat, a this, a that – and I would listen [and learn] And over time I’ve fallen in and out of love with The Beatles – they’re a huge behemoth in the world of the popular – christ [you know it ain’t easy] they practically invented it all – the boy band – the serious band – the arguments – the plundering of this and that – juxtaposition – it’s a drag man.

Richard and I wrote a play about the Beatles. We were young. We never took it to the West End – it wasn’t a sure fire hit. We still might cast it – Michael York as Rory Storm – that sort of thing. We also partook in a fancy dress competition – in fact – the only fancy dress competition I was ever in – not that I haven’t tried to look like my idols over the years – like some sort of perpetual fancy dress competition – I believe my Alex Patterson years were fairly successful – possible not my Flavour Flav’s. We went as John and Paul – we couldn’t muster a George or a Ringo – but looking back it would have been more fitting to be George and Ringo. We wore white collarless shirts and black trousers – Richard had fashioned some Lennon specs from chicken wire. He was Lennon – I was McCartney - as I shared a birthday [well all of my birthdays with Macca]. And obviously just in case our transformation was not good enough in itself – we put our names [that is John and Paul] on card around our necks.

We did not win.

Nor come second.

But immersing yourself in the those sounds in other people’s room’s was important. Of course my fascination [not musically] for Clifford T Ward was borne out of stops in that house – at the end of wibbly wobbly way and just down from Andy Ross’s. Some times I picture it vividly – those eighties days [and nights] sometimes I smell it too – a moment as I pull a record from a sleeve. I’m back in Richard’s house and a record is playing and we are talking – and invariably laughing about things. We still do that – laugh about things.

We should make time to play one another some records

But from time to time I return to Abbey Road Studios and hear the experiments in sound [and colour] that Martin and his mates put together. I’ve been listening to the Magical Mystery Tour album – all remastered and i-tuned for Apple[s] and that sloppy Ringo drumming keeps on giving me a smile. And the children have tuned in, turned on but not yet dropped out to the psychedelic sounds of Lucy in the sky with Diamonds, All you Need is Love, I am the Walrus and Strawberry Fields – so the car journeys are getting better [couldn’t get no worse] So it all starts again – this legacy – as two kids in juniors once did – playing songs for pleasure. The Beatles are the real rolling stones – they’re not stopping.

I bought the Beatles ‘Rarities’ album – this was a WH Smith purchase – upstairs in the precinct. Blue cover – simple – no pictures of the band – just their sounds. It had ‘Rain’ and ‘She’s a woman’ on it – I always come back to those. Not so much – ‘You Know My Name’ – although it does seem to surface in my life more times than I would have imagined back then. There’s something so beautiful about both of those tunes. There’s the Lennon sneer – as they ‘run and hide their heads’ and the all out blues of McCartney as he hollers that he don’t need no presents. This is The Beatles for me – fluid bass – scratched chords and harmonies rich in understanding – all the time accented by the fact that things might fall apart or get out of hand – that a shout might go up – a line get fluffed and before you know it – you’ve buried Paul and slayed the Tate household.

The Beatles are good people.

Being in the company of good people is always a bonus.