Horn Of Plenty Vinyl, CD & Tape 4 Items

After a year of releases exploring recent musics from the USA, Europe and the southern hemisphere the Horn of Plenty presents a survey of archival private, demo, and live tapes from local avant-anarcho-punks The Apostles. The tapes were (poorly) recorded in Islington & Hackney squats between 1981-1983 and they capture the fledgling band exploring various line-up's, styles & techniques with limited means and ability. In 1983 The Apostles released their first vinyl EP and switched mainly to a more straight-ahead anarcho-punk style. They gained a strong following then called it a day in 1989. Their vinyl output is still regarded highly by fans and collectors and their 'official' demo tapes have become highly sought-after, particularly since being namechecked by Ty Segall in a 2014 interview. In a 2009 article charting the band's history (frontman) Andy Martin gives these early tapes a mere footnote and states that, in his opinion, they are 'Best Forgotten'. With respect Andy, I beg to differ. Best Forgotten shows the band grappling with the political, racial and cultural tensions of the time whilst exploring radical politics and issues around homosexuality and mental health. Their sympathies with The Angry Brigade's 'direct action' ethos extended to their involvement with the squatted Centro Iberico and The Wapping Autonomy Centre where they worked closely with Crass, Poison Girls, Flux of Pink Indians and The Mob among others. Viewed retrospectively, it's easy to draw comparisons with early Fall records, The Door and The Window etc_ but also at their melodic best they echo 60's beat groups and even 70's blues-rock. A keen interest in tape collage (supplied here by Ian Rawes who later became established with his London Sound Survey project) and the avant garde also inform the mix. Highlights include a bleak reworking of Lemon Kittens' Chalet D'Amour and a live version of Simon & Garfunkel's I Am A Rock segueing into their take on Alternative TV's Splitting In Two recorded at The Recession Club in Ponsfor...

First full-length vinyl outing from Berlin-based Nein Rodere, featuring original and re-worked material from his previous self-released tapes alongside new material. A gateway into the work of this shape-shifting artist who can effortlessly move from catchy bedroom pop to more abstract work while crafting a cohesive and engaging LP. Recommended for fans of early Smog, Letha Rodman Melchior, Dean Blunt and Peter Jefferies. Presented in a spot-gloss cover with insert and booklet designed by the artist.

93 Minute Collection Of The Electronic, Ambient, Prog, And Kosmische Side Of The 80's-90's Paul Chain Catalogue. Paul Chain Is Widely Revered In The Doom Metal Underground, And Rightly So, But This Collection Aims To Highlight The Many 'Other' Sides To His Work. Anyone Interested In Nww List Or Mutant Sounds Should Investigate. Officially Licensed Collection Bringing These Gems To Back To Vinyl For The First Time In 30 Years. Numbered Edition Of 300 Copies.

Essential repress of this great LP of experimental Belgian folk music. Original pressing sold out within weeks and was listed at number 10 in the Quietus' best albums of the year so far. Horn of Plenty casts its gaze into the thriving contemporary Belgian underground with Annelies Monseré’s Mares, a remarkable body of experimental compositions that taps the deep well of raw, emotive expression rumbling below numerous traditions of European folk music.

As a member of Ghent’s experimental music scene, over the past two decades Annelies Monseré has slowly refined a singular approach to musicality, moving from the sparse, instrumental piano works from that defined her early career, toward increasingly complex arrangements of instrumentation that offer a central place to her own voice, issued by noteworthy imprints such as Morc Tapes, Stroom, and three:four. Like her work within the widely celebrated ensemble, Luster, as well as Distels, her duo with Steve Marreyt, Monseré’s solo efforts establish a strikingly beautiful and remarkably unique territory that elegantly balances between rigorous experimentalism, minimalism, drone, and folk.

Recorded between 2016 and 2022, Mares is arguably best approached through the song that marked its inception and conclusion, a rendition of Cyril Tawney’s Sally Free & Easy. Written in 1958 and popularised by Pentangle during the early 1970s, it has been approached by so many artists - Davy Graham, Trees, Tony Caro & John, Marianne Faithfull, Flying Saucer Attack, etc. - that it’s become a “standard” within the folk scenes of the last half century or so. Initially drawn to the melodic qualities of the tune, Monseré became fascinated with the lyrical content, which she points out are “ethically problematic: a sailor ‘slutshaming’ a woman because she left him.. blaming her for his (planned) suicide”. Refined from paired down beginnings over a six year period, a droning, feminist dirge slowly emerged from her hands, incorporating male backing vocals and harmonium as brooding counterpoint to her voice, that entirely recasts the song into a new and radically prescient form.

It is this sense of contrast - the elemental humanity and tension that runs below countless traditions of folk, reconceptualized within the forward thinking temperaments of contemporary experimental music - that defines Mares as such a distinct piece of work. A departure from her previous solo efforts, being the first to leave behind her main instruments, the guitar and piano, the album was conceived by Monseré as something akin to timbral painting; “adding similar layers upon each other with (slightly) different hues”. Taking the image of the sea and the ethical tensions within Sally Free & Easy as a conceptual departure point - weaving these themes like a thread through the record - amongst complex sets of harmonic relationships and varied durational structures that unfold within the remaining seven compositions, she intertwined her own childhood memories of the sea with interrogations of how “these memories are often arbitrarily fixed and tainted by the present, and more metaphorical (even biblical) connotations of the sea, hinting at toxic human relationships and intoxication in its multiple senses.”

Appearing with the immediacy and emotiveness of folk music, imbued with sense of adventure of experimentalism and bred with the restraint and elegance of minimalism, Mares’ is a deep body of sonority that draws upon the fundamental human need to express and commune through sound, projecting this ancient need into forward-thinking forms without sacrificing its roots. Profoundly beautiful, elegant, and poetic, these eight tracks offer immersion into the singular creative voice of one of the most unique artists currently working in the Belgian scene.