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The Mire

Mercury ire rising

Among the many music commentators noting the weakness of the UK's Mercury Music Prize shortlist for 2009, I liked this admirably researched and rather damning case for the prosecution from Toby Frith of London's Bleep43 webzine/club. Only four electronic nominations in over 15 years? Sheesh.

The Mire

The Dead C in Seattle

You can check out some pretty cool footage of The Dead C performing and an intriguing interview with the group in Seattle here . I understand it's all from 2008 – worth checking out.

The Mire

Below The Radar & Into The Vortex

CORRECTION!!! As posted here last week , The Wire will be joining forces with one of London's top music venues The Vortex to present an unmissable lineup of new music in October (with appearances by The Band Of Holy Joy, Richard Youngs & Heather Leigh Murray, Alasdair Roberts and The Caretaker amongst many others). But, well, in our haste to let everyone know about it, we posted the title Below The Radar .... which has actually now been taken up exclusively by our brand new subscriber-only download series, Below The Radar (click to find out all about it)! So now with great pleasure... and even greater resolve than before, we can reveal the new and true event title [queue drum roll]... INTO THE VORTEX 9, 10 & 11 October... Stick it into your diaries now and stay tuned for further information! ...

The Mire

Adventures In Modern Music 16/7/09

My Resonance FM show from last night with The Wire contributor Joe Muggs playing and chatting about UK Funky is now online and available for download here .

The Mire

Toshiya Tsunoda

Very interesting little piece from Toshiya Tsunoda about his approach to field recording, on the Erstwords blog. Tsunoda's approach is very specific to him, but for me his comments cut through a lot of very wooly thinking which is written about field recordings. A lot of stuff intends to document/preserve certain environments, but apart from the moral dimension of this (obviously to the fore in times of climate change) it seems a rather conservative with a small c aesthetic. Who's to say what is to be preserved and what isn't? That very few field recordists come up with a compelling answer to this question makes me wonder if many of them aren't just landscape painters for a new generation.

The Mire

Who'd'a thunk it?

Congratulations to the family man of UK Noise, Dylan Nyoukis, on his recent elevation to the avant garde pantheon. Ubuweb has just added a pile of tracks by Dylan to its already monumental library of 20th/21st century avant audio. The tracks feature this doyen of the DIY underground in various guises and combos, including Blood Stereo (a duo with the missus, Karen Constance).

The Mire

Sublime Frequencies in Berlin

When the Sublime Frequencies European label tour hit Berlin, its hosts, Club Transmediale, set up a series of talks and discussions, including The Wire 's Marcus Boon giving a talk on ethnopsychedelia, to support live sets by Group Doueh and Omar Souleyman. All the material, live sets and talks, has now been archived online here

The Mire

People get on board

Somehow I'd missed until David Stubbs mentioned it that the longrunning US soul show Soul Train is now up on You Tube . It might have only happened recently, but if you're in the UK this is like a portal opening up into 70s Black America – Soul Train has only ever been glimpsed here in occasional clips in documentaries. They're currently putting up classic old shows recently. When I talked to Jeff Mills a while back, he mentioned the kids doing a soul train in the classroom, and I didn't quite understand what he meant, even though I knew of the show – some sort of conga line? But I guess he meant the communal dance at the end, where over some ridiculously funky tune the audience line up to take it in terms to bust their moves. This sort of audience participation is really unfamiliar to British (and especially English) types. People clap the...

The Mire

The Middle East Coast

Occasionally records pop up on email lists which, simply by virtue of their titles, beg to be heard. Raks Raks Raks: 17 Golden Garage Psych Nuggets From The Iranian 60s Scene certainly hit this mark. Indeed, at one point you wondered whether it was too good to be true; the title ticked so many boxes (garage, psych, Iranian, 60s…) you wondered if it was designed by some enterprising committee of music forgers. Indeed, there's virtually no independent info about the artists online. But not only does this stuff sound completely of the time, but after a bit of contact with the compilers there's a fascinating story behind it. Released on the Raks Discos label, it's a long running labour of love for Dutch and Turkish collectors, who jointly sent some responses to my questions. The first question was how the hell they got wind of this music. "Knowing the fact that under...