twAt klAxon review emerges from the internet.....

Those lovely folks at NoiseNotMusic happened to listen to twAt klAxon's DRET010 release and liked what they heard - their words can be found here 

LoS

DRET DRET DRET.....

Bandcamp Friday seems to be coming round sharp these days and here we are again. DRET012, a collaboration between York's Chrisopher Nosnibor and Hammarö's Dale Prudent, is a harsh noise spoken word journey packed full of wordsmithery and full-on frequencies - listen and buy here - there's 4 tapes left, get weaving!

LoS 

Football, the name of the game (although it's much more than that.....)

 

Last weekend, I did something I’d not done since early March 2020. At that time last year, I went to watch Farsley Celtic FC play a particularly uneventful match against Hereford FC in the National League North (level 6 in the football pyramid of England). A friend commented that the lack of interest shown on the pitch made this feel like an end of season game where neither team have anything to play for. Two weeks later, it was the end of the season for most organised football in the UK due to new Covid-19 regulations and a significant chunk of my social life disappeared….. 

Fast forward then to Sunday the 21^st of November 2021, 20 months later. I finally went to a ticketed football match to watch my Swedish team Hammarby play at Stora Valla, the home of Degerfors Football Club. Degerfors, who have a good history of European football upsets in their past are, at the time of writing, in danger of dropping from the Allsvenskan (the Swedish Top Division) back to the Superettan (“The Super One”) from where they were promoted in late November 2020 – the football seasons in Sweden run roughly April to late November/early December because of the weather of course and have some quirks such as the Swedish Cup taking place over two seasons (qualifying matches in the previous year’s season and league and then knockouts in the current) to fit in with the European Competitions that start in late summer. With me so far? Good. 

Having been frisked by helpful staff who discover ingenious methods of attempts to smuggle in 330ml cans of beer (inside winter coat hoods, etc) and with my phone ticket scanned, I find myself on the Bortastå (away standing area) back amongst the Bajen (nickname for Hammarby) fans for the first time since August 2019 and immediately a great deal of the anxiety that has hit me for the past year and a half is defused – I am amongst a community of like-minded folk once again. It’s hard to describe in words how I feel at this moment, but joyful is fairly close and ecstatic is another one. I am back in a football ground at last and Degerfors is my most “local” side, but I am here to watch Hammarby, a club I have had ties with since 2007, a year or so before I first lived in southern Stockholm in 2008. 

Hammarby’s fans are hugely welcoming and extremely passionate about the club and the atmosphere in the away end is electric and the singing doesn’t stop, it rarely ever stops, even if the football on display is, which it has been a few times over the past 14 years of me watching, shite. Hammarby were one of the instigators of European football culture idea(l)s into Swedish football and come into this match needing to win to keep up the challenge for 3^rd place and qualifying matches for next year’s Europa Conference League. Hammarby played in this competition this year up to the very last qualifier second leg and went out on penalties (I had to “watch” these on a computer updating text as my video signal had crashed. Hammarby had won the Swedish Cup on penalties this season in a drab final, so maybe some karma was being evened out). 

Degerfors also need to win to avoid the relegation/promotion playoff with whoever finishes 3^rd in the Superettan. Some of my mates here in the Border County of Värmland in western Sweden support Degerfors, so I am torn as I want to come to this ground to watch my team next season, it's a great club with a good community feel about it. Degerfors had a decent start to the season but their current form is not good – 3 defeats in the last 4 games and the only win against already relegated Örebro – Hammarby are the opposite, 3 wins in 4 and 1 defeat. 

So, to the match. It doesn’t take too long for Hammarby to take control after some promising early play from Degerfors, but once “the most Viking looking of Hammarby’s players” Bjørn Paulsen’s header ends up in the net from Hammarby’s first corner, the 3 points are fairly secure. I never ever really feel confident enough to say these things out loud or sometimes think them, but I get a feeling that Hammarby will score a few goals today. 

15 minutes later Paulsen runs from defence on a Beckenbauer-esque mazy run which ends up with the final defender taking his legs and striker Selmani slots home the penalty 12 minutes before half-time and the points are definitely secured. I can now relax a bit more and enjoy the dominance of the second half as Paulinho follows up a saved shot to make it 3-0 and Ludwigson, who is playing left back or left wing (he’s a striker, but has played in midfield too this season and never stops running all match), squeezes a fourth goal from the acutest of angles. 

The singing increases in volume and the air temperature drops to around -4C at 1630, with the sun down an hour ago. Movement and jumping around makes sense in this weather, although the makeshift metal terracing occasionally feels like it’s going to give in and I am transported back to Hammarby’s old ground “Söderstadion” in April 2008 where there was a wooden standing terrace that seemed to jut out over the inner motorway and had 5 cms of snow and a ludicrous scoreline of 5-3 to Hammarby v Sundsvall, which had odds of 474-1. That fact is engrained in my mind for some reason. 

Degerfors nick a goal in the last minute, but this is a solid team performance and away supporters travelling west towards Norway (probably just me) and east towards southern Stockholm, go home in good cheer, not least because the queue for beer during the match was always long. Fellow strugglers Halmstad also lost so Degerfors still have hope, but the Halmstad result didn’t help as Elfsborg in fourth place took the points and lie 3 points clear of Hammarby. It looks like we’ll have to win the Svenska Cupen again if European football is to be coming back to the Tele 2 Arena in 2022……..

You can read more about Hammarby (in Swedish) here - https://www.hammarbyfotboll.se/ and Degerfors FC (also in Swedish) here - https://www.degerforsif.se/ - let a well known browser badly translate it for you ;-). 

PS I am missing massively all my mates who I go to footy matches with in the UK. I will be back next year to talk rubbish on poorly maintained terracing in early 2022, Covid situations permitting. Love you all and keep sending me pictures of the grounds and matches you are at. It makes an old man very happy…….

LoS

DRET011 review

Our good friends at Aural Aggravation continue their impressive run of reviewing DRET Skivor's produce with a swift turnaround - you can read their words here - review

LoS 

DRET011 is on its way......

The darker nights are with us again, so to celebrate Dret Skivor's 11th release is a midsummer collaboration release with Leeds Bad Tapes - the download and limited see-through tape release will become available on Bandcamp Friday on November the 5th. 

Here's some artwork from Bad Tapes' Theo Gowans, which is also the tape inlay. Nice, eh? 

LoS 

Hammarö Stickning Klubb live debut (online that is....)

Those very fine folks at Culture As A Dare have allowed Hammarö Stickning Klubb to play an online set of ambience and noise this coming Saturday. 

There is a Facebook event here - come join in at 1930 UK // 2030 Europe time.  

Here's a still from the set - 

LoS

Prudent online - must our children suffer this filth?

Gobshite spoken word "poet" Dale Prudent harasses the airwaves once again live from his kitchen. There's even a Facebook event that you can pretend you're interested in here - Dale. He promises new material full of swearing, despair and loathing of the state of humanity. You can make your own mind up whether our children deserve such misery in their lives, but only by attending. 

LoS

DRET010 is here

DRET Skivor reaches a milestone today as we set free our tenth release. This is a limited to 4 orange tape and download by Finnish sound artist twAt klAxon - available right now at the link below - 

Here is some image action - 

LoS

Drone for the Autumn - Skoghall style

It was the autumnal equinox in the Northern Hemisphere yesterday and the the Viking Gods of Ambient, Drone, Noise and Shitcore demanded a sacrifice - this was provided by the Copenhagen noise artist Claus Poulsen and local noisenik Dave Procter. 

A camera was on hand to capture the offerings, which we present now for your pleasure. 

LoS

Prudent Under Concrete

Gobmonger Dale Prudent has decided to record a number of his pieces using the acoustic properties of a variety of concreted structures in Värmland to enhance or blur his words as they interact with the space. 

The first session took place at Gamla skyttegrava in the north of Karlstad in a concreted dome just underground. Maybe the audio will be fed back in Lucier style in future visits, maybe it won't.  

Here is the inside of the dome, quite nice really. 

Further no audience spoken word concrete sessions will follow before the snows come.....

LoS

Playing IN at last. Mental health. A reflection.

Last month at the very fine establishment called Larrys Corner on Södermalm, Stockholm, Fibonacci Drone Organ performed a double set of Fibonacci Series and non-Fibonacci Series drone music for a small but perfectly formed crowd. Stockholm was pretty quiet that weekend as it was the last weekend before schools returned after the holidays and so Larrys was quieter than normal. I wasn't bothered to be fair, as I'd not played indoors to an audience for almost 19 months. And that was the important bit. Playing again, feeling part of summat. Being creative with other people in the same space. My mental state has taken a battering over the past year and a half - I was working "abroad" and trapped in the UK away from my wife and under lockdown - alone, anxious and frustrated at the lack of social interaction and things to do and the homicidal Covid and other policies of a lunatic government, led by a totally over-privileged prick and his equally clueless dickhead cabinet. I find being bored a hard thing to deal with and anyone who knows me knows that I need fun and that usually involves music, non-league football and beer, none of which were available. I found it hard to concentrate on anything and am still suffering a bit from this as the Covid-19 pandemic inevitably continues. I found performing again to be really surreal (the psychoacoustic nature of the music I was playing makes that happen anyway) and I wasn't sure what I was feeling while I performed, but I performed and that was the important thing. Getting a performance done in real life was important and essential. Being with other people is essential. 

I've no idea when I'll next play indoors - there are so many of my friends in Norway and Denmark that I haven't seen for 2 years now and want to see and collaborate with, but the situation we are in is so fluid and uncertain, that I find myself wondering if this will ever end. It will do, I know, but planning anything is so difficult at the moment, especially across the borders.

I really want to thank Larry Farber at Larrys Corner for putting me on and continuing to support me and other non-commercial artists and oddballs. It is really important that spaces like this exist and thrive and I urge Stockholmers to use the space as much as is possible. If I lived in Stockholm again, I'd be there all the time. There is summat magical about the place and its owner. Cherish both, please - don't fuck up,  Stockholm. Use it, don't lose it. Ok? Here endeth the lesson. 

Here is a picture that was taken by my ace wife as the frequencies started to overwhelm my tired brain. 

LoS

DRET009 review

With customary pace, speed and wordsmithery, those folks at Aural Aggravation have digested DRET009's contents and spewed forth this review here. Thanks Aural Aggravation! 

LoS

DRET009 out now!

Dret Skivor release a new LP by Copenhagen's Claus Poulsen and a mighty fine thing it is too. Limited tape and download and can be bought here. Pictures below - 

LoS

It's bandcamp Friday and DRET008 is amongst us!

This time @DRET Skivor has the talent's of Copenhagen composer Tommy Li onboard for a 40 minute journey of ambience, drone and noise. It's a beautiful work and some pictures lie below - click on the link to listen and hopefully purchase. Support your (un)local experimenters! 

LoS

Playing out at last - Fibonacci Drone Organ does a gig!

It's been nearly 17 months since the author of this blog did a gig. That is a long time and longest time without live action for decades. To coincide with the one year to the day anniversary of getting back to Sweden, your trusty scribe donned his Fibonacci Drone Organ mask of drone and set out for the wilds of Östgötaland, somewhere near to the village of Varv for a fine limited attendance festival curated by the very lovely Ola Ilstedt, someone I met at the fine record shop/performance space Larry's Corner in Stockholm in mid-January 2020 just before the Covid restrictions started happening. As FDO and with Scaramanga Six lead vocalist Paul Morricone, I was due to play at Ola's 50th birthday do in Stockholm in April 2020, but of course that didn't happen as we were both stuck in the UK under lockdown. 

Ola contacted me in June 2021 to ask if I would come and play at his festival. He had previously enthused at how the reverberant qualities of the audio on the CD he bought at Larry's Corner had worked so well inside his summer cottage (lots of Swedes have them) and wondered if I could do an outdoor set? I was very happy to do so and the festival was great fun and a real community atmosphere. Many many thanks to Ola and all who made it happen, it was a really fun time :-). 

Here's some pictures I took on my crap phone.....

LoS 

DRET007 review

Those nice folks at Aural Aggravation have been quick in delivering a review of the latest DRET Skivor release - read their words here

LoS

DRET007 is out

Skilfully embedded below is the new Dret Skivor release - best enjoyed with headphones or decent speakers. 

LoS

New DRET goodness out tomorrow

New DRET Skivor act Hammarö Stickning Klubb release their first tape called "Storbror" tomorrow on Bandcamp, with Bandcamp's take of the monetary tokens going to the NAACP Legal Defence Fund. No details on music yet, but this is the cover for the limited edition tape. 

LoS

DRET artist appears on Left of Leeds compilation release

DRET Skivor's latest signings Hammarö Stickning Klubb appear on a Left of Leeds compilation curated by the very ace John Toolan. Listen below and download for nowt!

LoS

Dale!!

Hammarö's favourite walking, talking gobshite Dale Prudent is back in action, live from his kitchen in Skoghall with some words of wisdom and some swearwords. 

Here's the event - Dale action

Here's a picture of a cormorant for no reason whatsoever. 

LoS

DRET006 tapes - sold out already! And first review....

DRET006, a limited tape release by der Kostermonger, has been selling well. In fact, it's sold out already! 

Luckily for you all, the digital version is still available - click below to listen and download...

AND

Those ace folks at Aural Aggravation have written some words here. 

LoS 

Bandcamp Friday comes around again - new DRET action!

It's the first Friday of the month and currently that means it's Bandcamp Friday when Bandcamp take no monetary tokens whatsoever and their share goes to the artists. Decent behaviour. 

Värmland's favourite * noise/drone/ambient/weirdo shit label DRET Skivor releases its 6th offering on said Friday - they present reclusive noisehead der Kostermonger and his/her treatise on the appalling shithousery going on in the UK on the appropriately titled "Plague Island". It comes on a "rare as rocking horse shit" blue // yellow C22 and download. There's only 4 copies, so get yer skates on like.....

LoS 

* not backed up by any evidence of course. 

DRET005 reviewed!

Hot on the heels of @Dret Skivor's fifth release comes the review of said release by York-based Aural Aggravation - read the news here 

LoS

It's Bandcamp Friday again - new DRET Skivor action!

Dret Skivor releases two new desirable objects today at 0800 BST // 0900 CST - 

(1) Tore Honoré Bøe limited to 30 tape and download - we are really happy that the Norwegian noise legend joins us at Dret! Some pictures for your perusal -

(2) DRET t-shirts - oh yes, Medium and Large size with the DRET logo splashed across your chest.  

LoS

Chapel FM International Experimental Music Night

Fibonacci Drone Organ was one of the acts that took part in Chapel FM's International Drone Night last evening on the internet. 

You can see and listen right here - massive thanks to John Toolan and Elliott Moon for all things related to this evening. 

LoS

DRET004 reviewed by Aural Aggravation

Our good friends at Aural Aggravation in York have reviewed Fern's Inhibitory Shortcomings - you can find their words right here

LoS

Bandcamp Friday is here again - new ambient glitch out on DRET Skivor

Dret Skivor releases its 4th offering today - ambient glitch experiments from Kristinhamn's Fern. Out now on limited tape and download - 

LoS

DRET Skivor badges now available......

Oh yes! Packs of 5 25mm pin badges are now available at the DRET Skivor bandcamp site - have a peep here - 

LoS

DRET004 released one week today on bandcamp Friday

Collectivising label Dret Skivor releases its 4th offering on Friday 5th Match 2021 when bandcamp once again takes no fees. This release features the Kristinehamn-based Fern providing ambient glitch experiments. Available as very limited C22 and download. Save your pennies, kronor and other currencies and visit the website a week today!!

LoS 

Welcome to Clydebank compilation released

Legion of Swine, Hammarö's top porcine noise maker, was asked by the kind folks at Welcome to Clydebank to submit 3 seconds of audio for their compilation "You Have Three Seconds". It's now out and can be listened to here - https://wtc-communications.bandcamp.com/album/you-have-three-seconds

LoS

A new review for Parallel Perspectives

Our chums at Vital Weekly in the Netherlands have received, listened to and got enveloped by Procter // Poulsen's "Parallel Perspectives" recent CD release on Ojud Records - here are their words taken from their website, which you should definitely visit - they review all kinds of great music there - link here

PROCTER & POULSEN - PARALLEL PERSPECTIVES (CDR by Ojud Records)

Given whatever I know from the work of Dave Procter and Claus Poulsen, I expected some harsh noise collaboration. I know Poulsen operates in many sub-genres from the world of noise, ambient, electronics and improvisation, but Procter I only know from his noise project Legion Of Swine, which he performs on stage with a pig’s mask. In January 2020 Procter visited Poulsen in his Studio Skrat and brought relatively low stuff and couple with Poulsen's instruments in similar style; a Casio SK1 (the lowest form of sampling), tapes, vinyl, amplified objects, pedals, feedback and laptops to manipulate field recordings. The result is a single piece, lasting fifty-three minutes and there is very little noise to be spotted here; far from actually. These tones just wander about, slowly and majestically. It starts with more ubiquitous drones on the organ and vinyl crackles but slowly unfolds in a richer pattern of treated cymbal sounds, spacious drones, more crackles and seems to be getting the addition of guitar drones and in the second half unfolds a more ended playing between the two, with the drones now in a cascading form, coming and going like waves upon a shore. The vinyl crackles remain a thing throughout here, but they are used with such fine sparseness that it doesn't get into the way of the rest of the music. A constant change, both within instruments and sounds used, remains part of these excellent pieces. I zoned and droned out on this, sitting, flipping through pages, looking for mistakes, as part of something else. I didn't notice that it was on repeat and I must have played this 3 or 4 times in a row the first afternoon I got this. (FdW)

––– Address: http://ojudrecords.bandcamp.com

LoS 

DRET003 reviewed

The busy and ever eager for new music folks at Aural Aggravation have listened to and digested the harsh noise of Noise Against Fascism - their review lies here - many thanks Chris and company! 

LoS

DRET003 out on bandcamp Friday

Dret Skivor releases its third offering - Malmö's Noise Against Fascism gives us The Violence in all its harsh noise glory. 

Listen above or go to Dret Skivor 

LoS

New Fibonacci Drone Organ music - raxil4 compilation

raxil4, aka Andrew Page, put a call out to sonic artists to "respond" to his "call", with the response to be the same length as his original piece - Fibonacci Drone Organ did this very thing, producing "svar" [Swedish for 'reply"]. The collected works so far can be found here - do your ears a favour and get listening!

LoS 

DRET002 first review

The very fine people at Aural Aggravation have reviewed Dret Skivor's second release by Legion of Swine - read the words here 

LoS  

DRET002 - Legion of Swine release - today

Dret Skivor release their second offering of Scandinavian oddness - some "almost" Harsh Noise Wall by label top porker Legion of Swine - listen below 

LoS

Poulsen//Procter Parallel Perspectives gets reviewed already!

 Thanks to the fine folks at Aural Aggravation who have reviewed the release - please read here

LoS 

Latest Poulsen//Procter release from Ojud Records!

Our friends at Ojud Records have pulled a right cracker this new year - Denmark's Claus Poulsen and Sweden's Dave Procter combine forces once more to give you "Parallel Perspectives", a one-piece 52 minute limited edition CD and download from the label bandcamp site - 

LoS