From the Top Drawer LXIV - Another Green World

 For this year's Summer Solstice, here is the third cassette release from the organic/electronic ambient duo of Dan Carpenter (sax & clarinet) and Paul Chousmer (all other instruments & noises).

 

 Not much more to say about AGW that I haven't covered on their previous posts HERE and HERE ,

except that if you like their very mellow style (and you like bird noise!), you certainly won't be disappointed by this tape.

 Ripped as two side-long tracks @320kbps.

 Kick off your shoes, feel the grass between your toes, and get out your butterfly net to trap a copy as it floats by...

DOWNLOAD HERE

http://www.discogs.com/Another-Green-World-Adjusting-The-Mirror/release/2481722

From the Top Drawer XLIX - Earthnicht

Earthnicht was a short-lived side-project centred around musicians from bands who regularly played at Club Dog at the Sir George Robey in Finsbury Park, North London, and who would also play at various squat/free/benefit gigs in London and further afield. Earthnicht live consisted of (when available) five full kit drummers (Sean, Jonee, Nick, Tanya and Generator John), a sax player (the ubiquitous Danny) and a synth/keyboard player (Paul).

 

Kicking off the opening night of the 1989 autumn season at Club Dog...

With this line-up, naturally the music focused on driving syncopated rhythms topped with improvised sound. When the drummers gelled and synchronised, the audience was in for a thunderous, danceable treat.

This tape (Earth Heartbeat) was compiled from live shows in London and Milton Keynes
 - tracks as above.

Ripped @320kbps as two side-long tracks

Get it HERE

From the Top Drawer XLVII - The Ullulators

This almost totally electronic 1994 studio release from the Ullulators sees them exploring the world of 1990s dance culture with excursions into ambient techno/trance, trip-hop, samples and loops and what would later come to be known as IDM (Intelligent Dance Music).

Diehard fans of their earlier, guitar-based organic style and those likely to be offended by any extended series of repetitive beats may be disappointed by the changes, but anyone who has ears to listen will be rewarded by some finely crafted tunes which still retain the Ullulators' signature vision of playful spacy experimentation topped with world music overtones...

Ripped from an original cassette as two side-long tracks @320kbps - tracklisting as above.

Get a copy HERE

From the Top Drawer XLII - Lapwing

A recording from the audience of this short-lived band who played just a few gigs before breaking up and moving on to different projects. Lapwing were curiously named after the bird seen above ;-)

Somewhat of an underground 'supergroup', Lapwing on this occasion featured James Vane (Vane, Ring Of Roses, etc) on vocals, Dan Carpenter (Ring Of Roses, Webcore, Another Green World, Thunderdogs, etc) on saxophone, Gavin Griffiths (Ozric Tentacles, Ullulators, Thunderdogs, etc) on lead guitar, plus other bods whose names escape me - I simply don't remember...doh. A high energy upfront set with a psych/glam/goth tinged edge to the songs as the charismatic style of Jimmy Vane comes through.

Taped at the Sir George Robey pub in Finsbury Park, London, on 6th May 1988 - I'm not sure whether this was a Club Dog night or not but after checking that this was on a Friday night, it's quite likely this was a canine event - woof.

No track titles available for the set, but knowledgeable types will recognise a great version of the psychedelic classic 'Kites', a 1967 hit for Simon Dupree and the Big Sound.

Ripped from a chrome cassette @320kbps and slightly edited to preserve quality.

Grab a copy HERE

From the Top Drawer XXXV - The Ullulators

Back with the Ullulators again, as I know there have been requests for this particular tape. As well there might be, for in my opinion it represents the very best of their 1980s output.

Dating from 1989 (?) or thereabouts this album reflects more of a band effort than on previous recordings and a number of tracks such as 'Special Brew', 'Golden Soldier', and 'S.M.I.L.E.' were audience favourites at live shows.

A potent combination of spacerock, dub, electronica, reggae and Eastern-tinged inspired psychedelia presented in many shapes and forms.

  Side One: Pooja Dub/Special Brew/EE-A Whoppa Amu Hé/Jammu-Tawi Express/S.M.I.L.E/In A Space/In Plaited Hair You Hid The Flow Of Ganges Foam!/We All Love The Same Girl/Things Moving About Outside/Mangonian Pop Musik/Ajos Amour
      
  Side Two: Duck Nipples/Buttering The Guttering/Agape Dub/It's A Beautiful Thing/Honey, The Milk/Hinayn/Golden Soldier/Quiche Alaha/Harmal Radio

Ripped @320kbps as two side-long tracks - download a copy HERE

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I believe that remasters of the early Ullulators catalogue will soon be available in digital format, probably a 2CD compilation of the best tracks chosen by Gavin and hand tweaked from the original tapes in his own studio. I'll let readers of the blog know when I discover that they're ready to go - until then, enjoy the tape rips...

(The Ullulators are on Facebook!)

From the Top Drawer XXVIII - The Ullulators

A second outing on this blog to satisfy requests for more from the very popular Ullulators.

 Going beyond...

The second cassette release 'Beyond The Gates Of Ull' arrived in 1986 and provided another helping of psychedelic spacerock, ambient synth explorations, Holger Czukay-style ethnic samples and dub with lashings of rocking guitar.
(Check out the first, 'Share A Clam', & more info on the band HERE)

- Beyond The Gates Of Ull  -

Side One : Ul Ul Ul He / Simply Conscious Dub / Thump The Hampster / The Emerald Table Of Hermes Trisamagistus / Pineapple People / Whales In The Grass / War Apes / Unninurnies / I Can Smell Nirvana
Side Two : Improbable Muziks / Edilhe / Sloshy Sausages / Living In A Nice Hedge / Shringara / Fish Trunks / Brooce Babbling In The Undergrowth (live@Torpedo Town 1986) / Cluck-Cluck-Oi

Ripped from an original tape as two side-long tracks @320kbps

Get it HERE

Live at Treworgy Tree Fayre 1989

Ullulators on Facebook

Ullulators on MySpace

From the Top Drawer XXII - The Ullulators

A first outing on this blog for the fondly remembered Ullulators who brought their own brand of space-rock-reggae and general jamming madness to many free festivals and gigs in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Formed by guitarist Gavin Griffiths after his departure from the original twin guitar line-up of Ozric Tentacles, and having decided that the energy of their early period would best be served by splitting that atom off into the creation of a separate second entity, the Ullulators came into being.

Joined by the ubiquitous Joie Hinton on keyboards, Roly Wynne on bass and drummer Nick van Gelder among others for early gigs and recordings, initial home studio efforts yielded the first of several tapes, 'Share A Clam With The Ullulators', a collection of instrumental rock, dub reggae, deep synth experiments, and excursions into headspaces flavoured as much by the inhaled ambience of travels to the East as by the vibe of life in London at that time.

Later Gavin and Joie were to be joined by Jane Bradfield, Generator John, Kay Springer, Chambers and Andy Ull as the band found itself a more stable gigging line-up.

Two other tapes followed until in 1989 the then current line-up of the band recorded an album at Dave Anderson's Foel Studios in Wales. Called 'Flaming Khaos' and released on vinyl through Anderson's Demi Monde label, this showed the band incorporating more overt influences from world music as well as numbers from the full-on live shows that their audience had been enjoying for some time.

The band was later put on extended hiatus in the early 1990s when Gavin worked with the Thunderdogs and Cirque Archaos until the eventual demise of that travelling show. More studio tapes were issued in the 1990s, but live appearances became more rare. Unfortunately bass player and singer Kay has since passed on. In remembrance...

  Side One: Gunk Rock / Zuzklucky / Tango Mango / The Ruzbitud Shuffle / Mixy Noise / The Full Itself Remains / Fatty Dub / Stomach Speaker
  Side Two: Hanuman Dub / Blue Aethyr / Narasimha / The Ostragoth / Elephants Have Gills / All You Need Is Hash / Eternal Now / More Tea Vicar?

Ripped from an original cassette as two side-long tracks @320kbps

Share A Clam With The Ullulators HERE

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Recently Gavin has announced his intention of remastering these early cassettes and releasing them digitally on CD, so this tape rip will act as a taster for those reissues.

Update from Myspace

(Plenty photos taken from the Ullulators Facebook page here)

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Ullulators at the Pullens Free Festival 25 August 1990Watch on Google Video 

From the Top Drawer XIX - Thunderdogs

 

Maybe best remembered (or at least reaching their largest audience) as the house band for Circus Archaos during their Metal Clown production era, the Thunderdogs were birthed in the South London squatting scene of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Members included musicians who had already cut their performing teeth playing in other free festival/underground bands such as Ozric Tentacles, Ullulators, Webcore, Ring Of Roses & Moksha, and were to move on to play in their turn with the Ozrics, Spannerman, Dream Machine and others...

The band played driving melodic rock largely dominated by Tony's strong vocals and Dan Carpenter's sax playing, and would stretch the songs out to improvise instrumental jams according to the situation, occasionally dipping into spacerock territory where Seaweed's synths would come to the foreground. In 1991 they released both a 12" single, 'Just After Sunrise' and a full-length album, 'Thundermental' recorded at Dave Anderson's Foel Studios in Wales, and released on their own Doctor Dog Records.
The name of the band apparently came from the 1981 comic book drawn by Hunt Emerson, who contributed a hilarious cartoon of the band for the album sleeve of 'Thundermental'.

I caught the band playing atop a motorised high-rise platform as part of the Archaos show, when the not just Big, but gigantic, Top was set up next to Battersea Power Station for a month in late 1991, not long after Archaos had run into big financial problems when their main tent was destroyed by high winds in Dublin, leading to the circus' eventual demise, and (I'm guessing) the breakup of the band as well...

Side One : Name Of The Law / Sabotage / Bowler / I Don't Want The World

Side Two : Socket-Oomi / Jeremia / Blowing Away / Just After Sunrise

Ripped @320kbps from an original cassette as two side-long tracks
(slight glitch at start of Side One)
grab a copy HERE

(Some pics nicked from the Archaos Archive)

From the Top Drawer XI - Webcore

Here we have the second cassette release by Webcore, called 'The Great Unfolding' which came out on the A Real Kavoom label in 1986. Second time around their sound became more accessible and dynamic than on the 'Cinematography' tape and more danceable, although the ambient and poetry interludes remained. Gigs often now featured a drummer as opposed to the drum tapes they had formerly used, sax replaced violin, and backing singers had joined. 'Captain's Table' from the first tape appeared again in an overhauled version, as did the superb full band reworking of 'Nothing Can Stop Us Now' from Eden's 'Flipside' album.

Live at Club Dog, Wood Green 23.01.87 with occasional Suzi Quatro drummer Colin

One of those wonderful flyers of the time

 

Side One - Nothing Can Stop Us Now / A Pocket Full Of Posies / The Great Unfolding / Captain's Table

Side Two - Just Can't Tell Him / Backseat Driver / In The Mood? / 6+7=10

ripped from an original cassette @320kbps as two side long tracks - 

fill yer boots HERE

Live at Club Dog, Wood Green 15.05.87 with Tig (Nick van Gelder) on drums

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Interview with keyboard player Paul Chousmer in January 2000
http://www.aural-innovations.com/issues/issue9/chousmr1.html