Album Review: Kill Shelter & Antipole - A Haunted Place (2021)

A Haunted Place is a new collaborative album made by Edinburgh-based Pete Burns (Kill Shelter) and Trondheim-based Karl Morten Dahl (Antipole). It’s a partnership that feels like the most natural thing in the world. It’s also not an entirely new development, with Dahl having contributed to the Kill Shelter debut (Damage) of a few years back, and Burns having previously added deft remixing touches to Antipole’s past work. I think I’m also correct in saying that the pair were former labelmates on the Unknown Pleasures platform. But A Haunted Place, released on the Manic Depression label, is the first occasion that Burns and Dahl have put their names to the same full-length album.

It’s a blending of dark post-punk talent that complements each man’s skills perfectly. Burns really does have a terrific “goth” voice, the sort that immediately conjures up recall of some of the genre’s finest exponents of yester-year … the likes of Murphy, and Eldritch, to name only the most obvious of touchstones. The sort of vocal that undoubtedly adds an extra layer of drama and heft to proceedings. That’s without even starting on his abilities as a multi-instrumentalist, his generally excellent word-smithery, and crystalline production skills.

Dahl’s powers have been well documented on this site in the past. Antipole’s work will need no introduction to any regular everythingsgonegreen reader. If there is such a thing. I’ve fanboy-ed so often on this blog it almost feels embarrassing to wax any further about his melodic, always evocative, and frequently mesmerising guitar work. Suffice to say his instantly identifiable use of space remains a stand-out feature on A Haunted Place, and the manner in which his own fretwork blends so beautifully with that of Burns is key to making the collaboration so effective.

So it is an album that fair drips with a dark dense atmosphere, from the banging club-geared opener ‘Raise The Skies’, right through to the more mild paced album closer, ‘Every Waking Hour’, it’s a journey into a deep fog of nocturnal wanderings (and back). The sort of trip that might be traversed through the chilly or misty narrow cobblestoned lanes of old Edinburgh town in the middle of a winter’s night. With an all-consuming sense of drama. A prevailing angst proving impossible to shake due to the uncertainty of what might be lurking under that streetlamp off in the murky distance. A picturesque dream that hasn’t quite yet morphed into a fully-fledged nightmare.

Your blogger may have even experienced such, in a past life. I know that exact spot in Auld Reekie. Devastatingly beautiful by day, unnerving and foreboding by night. Sadly, I have no personal experience of Trondheim, but I imagine it wouldn’t be too dissimilar to Edinburgh … and maybe, just maybe, that is exactly where and how this album was born? Different cities, but shared experiences, past lives, and haunted places.

P.S. Don’t look behind you.

Bandcamp link here.

Melted Ice Cream and Wurld Series

Melted Ice Cream is a Christchurch-based label which has been at the forefront of the Christchurch indie scene for a number of years now. My own relationship with the label goes back to 2013 when a label sampler called Sickest Smashes from Arson City (here) hit my inbox, introducing me to previously unfamiliar artists such as Salad Boys, Transistors, X-Ray Charles, and Wurld Series. 

The general vibe of that release, and the music of those acts reminded me a lot of the earliest Flying Nun stuff I loved so much in the 1980s. Subsequent years have seen the label expand its roster to become a significant player in the always vibrant Christchurch indie scene, and although I can’t hand-on-heart say I’ve followed everything being released – the label is relatively prolific – I’ve always retained an interest in all of the above artists. In fact, I’ve previously blogged about Salad Boys (here). I also really liked the fact that Melted Ice Cream released cassettes during an era when that particular medium was being shunned almost everywhere else.  

Calling Melted Ice Cream a “label” might actually be a little bit inaccurate, or a bit of an injustice even, because I suspect, as with fellow Southerners Flying Nun and Xpressway, it’s much more of a tight creative hub or community than merely a vehicle by which to release music.

Fast forward to 2021, and it seems even the globally renowned and widely read music website Pitchfork has started to take note, with the brand new Wurld Series album, What’s Growing, receiving a very positive review (here) earlier this week. I downloaded the album, and although I’m unable wax quite as lyrically as our learned Pitchfork friends, or discuss the deeper meaning (maaan) behind the band’s songs in quite the same way as that website somehow manages, I can say I’ve enjoyed listening to it a fair amount over the past couple of days.

A very digestible 15 tracks, nine of them clocking in under the 2-minute mark, with stand-out track ‘Nap Gate’ (clip below) being the longest at just a few clicks under four minutes. What’s Growing appeals as being a far more polished collection than anything else Wurld Series has released in the past. You can read a little bit more about Melted Ice Cream, Wurld Series, and pick up a copy of the album here.

Julian Cope: The Early 90s Thrillogy

Craig Stephen reflects on the post-Teardrop Explodes musical legacy of Julian Cope, with focus on an early 90s “thrillogy” …

He gained chart success as a leather-jacketed rock God for the St Julian album, and followed it with a failed attempt at being a pop star on My Nation Underground, which he then dismissed as “the Scottish Album”. So Julian Cope went back to what he was best at: being a demented Druid-loving weird bastard.

And it worked, magnificently so. Cope produced what can be described as a monumental cannon of work tied together by his ambition and determination to subvert the norms, on three excellent and individualistic albums released between 1991 and 1994.

Each of these three albums - two of them doubles, such was the Arch Drude’s prolific output at the time - could be reviewed extensively and separately in their own right. And as tempting as that challenge would be, you know, I’ve got flies to swat and window sills to clean, so this compilation will suffice.

Peggy Suicide (1991)

A masterful concept delivered over four sides and 18 tracks that even contained some pop songs catchy enough to venture into the charts. Before unleashing Peggy Suicide, Cope had mightily pissed off Island Records through the covert, in-one-take-and-outta-here Skellington. He’d also found time to record and release another album that would never be played before 7pm, Droolian, which contained snippets that presaged what was to come.

Yet it was a leftover from the maligned My Nation Underground that set the ball rolling, ‘Beautiful Love’, with its subtle radio friendly sound the ghastly daytime DJs couldn’t help but resist. It was an exception, however. The follow-up ‘East Easy Rider’ was a Funkadelic-style trip utilising wah-wah pedals and heavy riffs. And Cope’s themes of the time – stone circles, cars v bikes, the Poll Tax, neoliberalism and climate change majestically seeped through almost every song. Cope was Jim Morrison and Syd Barrett rolled into one.

‘Promised Land’, for instance, bemoans the legacy of Margaret Thatcher, who had been deposed a few months earlier: “The hate that she inspires/ Has to be seen to be believed.”

‘Soldier Blue’ was a diatribe on police brutality: “On your hind legs you beat us/ And I hope that you're proud, Soldier Blue”, while sampling the famous 1990 anti-Poll Tax riot that Cope attended in costume and which ended in violence following police provocation. It also included a sample of Lenny Bruce’s notable refrain from a live skit: “Here's a stick and a gun and you do it/ But wait 'til I'm outta the room/ But wait 'til I'm outta the room.”

As Cope’s sleeve notes explain, ‘Leperskin’ is “for all the Lepers of Lambeth – Polltax value £521.” The Community Charge, which the British government always called it, saw rich pricks in mansions pay the same amount as people squashed into bedsits. No wonder the people were revolting.

Experimentation, mainstreamism, short songs, long songs, anger, energy, mellowness … Peggy Suicide had a massive reach.

Jehovahkill (1992)

Island hated Jehovahkill … and that in itself is a mark of honour. You can imagine the suits’ faces on learning what the title would be and the angst they’d endure about possibly upsetting a religious sect. They rejected the first version of the LP, called Julian H. Cope – again more God-baiting titles – which seemed to settle the nerves of the label heads but the resulting album was a commercial bypass.

It was far less attractive to the Madonna fans out there than its predecessor, with more emphasis on a Germanic, experimental sound, as exemplified on ‘The Subtle Energies Commission’ or on ‘Necropolis’, with plenty of rock and psychedelia in the mix too. 

It also developed Cope’s medieval/pagan themes with a photograph of the neolithic Callanish Stones of the Western Isles for the cover. There’s less of the blatant sloganeering and politics of Peggy, which allows Cope to focus wholly on subject matters that delve deeply into the esoteric.

Autogeddon (1994)

Shorn of the unwanted interference and haughtiness of Island, and now on new label Echo, Cope cracked on with the car-hating Autogeddon. It was also less encumbered, with just eight tracks on a single album, without any of the “phases” that broke up the previous works.

Cope’s dislike of our wheel had come full circle. Inspired, he writes on the reissue sleeve notes: “ … by Heathcote Williams’ epic poem of the same name, and a little incident concerning my pregnant wife (and myself) and £375,000 of yellow Ferrari in St Martin’s Lane, London, England.”

These moving chunks of metal had become symbols of the ecological vandalism wrought by man on the planet. “And my waking dream won't go away/ Motorway services were the new cities/ The poisonous air had wrecked our homes/ Gasoline rivers burning up the seas” (‘Autogeddon Blues’).

Cope laments the loss of the English countryside and the people who lay claim to the land: “But out here in the fields/ You know they're still just fields/ Still fences and signs screaming: Keep off my land/ No Trespass - By Order.”

On one of his more outlandish efforts, ‘Don’t Call Me Mark Chapman’, Cope truly takes the C road into Backwater Valley, dropping another assassin’s name, Sirhan Sirhan, into the mix, as well as Duran Duran and … the man who gave us ‘Copacabana’ and ‘Mandy’: “All night Barry Manilow playing loud over the speaker system/ Just trying to drive the fucker out.”

It’s not known if Jeremy Clarkson is a fan of the album.

Superfantasticextraspecialultradeluxe editions …

All three albums have been reissued with an array of b-sides, outtakes etc, making already lengthy albums even longer. These include remixes of two of the singles on Peggy Suicide and other such treatments, and on Jehovahkill the original 21-and-a-half minute version of ‘Poet Is Priest’.

Autogeddon, while not as revered as much as the other two, has been given an excellent reissue treatment, coming in a hardback book format with extensive notes including a lengthy retro review by Martin Bramah of the Blue Orchids. It includes the very obscure Paranormal in the West Country EP and a couple of other hard-to-find tracks on the extra disc.

2020: Compilations, Reissues, & Boxes

Timely as ever, I just want to belatedly offer a few more thoughts on some of the releases added to the everythingsgonegreen music vaults across 2020. When it came to compilations, reissues, and box sets, it was a fairly heavyweight line-up.

Starting with perhaps the heaviest of them all, reputation-wise at least. Digging Deep: Subterranea, which offers a barely anticipated but very welcome 30-track Robert Plant solo career overview. One that sees the more obvious “hits” like ‘Big Log’, ‘Ship of Fools’, and ‘In The Mood’ sitting snuggly alongside a whole bunch of far less obvious stuff. And as any Plant fan will tell you, it’s the latter category where the real gems can be found. Digging Deep: Subterranea collects work from all but a couple of Plant’s post-Zepp solo releases across nearly four decades. The only notable absentee being work from the superb Alison Krauss collaborative effort, although Jimmy Page himself would surely argue that particular point. There’s three new (or previously unreleased) tracks to be found, the best of which is the Patty Griffin duet, ‘Too Much Alike’. More than anything, the album highlights what an exceptional career Plant has had. And still has.

In December 2020 the pop world found itself mourning all over again with the realisation that a whole 40 years had (or have) passed since John Lennon was so needlessly gunned down outside his NYC apartment. Naturally, without wishing to get too cynical about it all, a lot of fuss was centred around a new collection of Lennon post-Beatles work in the form of Gimme Some Truth. At 36 tracks in its deluxe form, it’s a balanced mix of his (and Yoko’s) best known material, alongside the not so well-kent stuff. I grabbed it, because I wanted to play the game, I like a bit of John, and of course I needed a long overdue companion set for my 2007 remastered version of Shaved Fish (1975). Apparently.

A far less-hyped late-in-the-year compilation release from a band that rarely put a foot wrong during its pomp of roughly a decade ago, was The Kills’ Little Bastards. Which is everything it promises to be on the tin. Rough, ready, raw and rudimentary rock n roll, across 20 tunes, the vast majority of which are hugely improved from their original form thanks to 2020 remastering. Highly recommended, and all that.

Speaking of rough and rudimentary, the long lost and I guess, very overdue, obligatory White Stripes Greatest Hits set was sitting in my collection before I even knew I needed it. Which I very much didn’t. I’m a Jack White fan, I don’t mind owning that … what else can I say? I’m also a bit of a Meg fan, if I’m being completely vulnerable and honest about everything. You’ll know all of these so-called greatest hits, or more shamefully, you might be someone who knows only ‘Seven Nation Army’. If you’re the latter, don’t sleep on this one, the White Stripes’ Greatest Hits album is here for you, not me.

Which brings me to a couple of compilations that aren’t really compilations because they appeal as being a little more niche or specific than that broad brush stroke might allow. New forms of old work:

Foals Collected Reworks Volumes 1, 2, & 3. More than four hours’ worth of the Oxford band’s finest moments reconfigured for what appears to be a rather large heavily lit dancefloor. Although it’s nowhere near as dubious as that may sound. Volume 1 is actually rather good, with serious producer-types, the likes of Hot Chip, Alex Metric, Purple Disco Machine, and Solomun, for starters, going mental on a career-spanning collection of Foals’ best stuff. In fact, Solomun’s edit of ‘Late Night’ is the stand-out track across the entire three volumes, which can all be picked up separately - as opposed to the full set I managed to snare. It is however a three volume set that falls slight victim to the law of diminishing returns. I felt a little jaded by the end. Volume 1 is probably quite enough techno-fried Foals, thank you very much, despite the best efforts of Jono Ma Jagwar Ma, Lindstrom, Mount Kimbie, and Trophy Wife on the second and third instalments. File this one away under: good to have, but not essential.

A little more essential for me, and another release that was both new material and yet not quite new material, was another intriguing instalment in David Bowie’s Changes series. This one - ChangesNowBowie - being specific to a radio special the great man recorded back in 1996. Featuring tunes like ‘The Man Who Sold The World’, ‘Aladdin Sane’, and Tin Machine’s ‘Shopping For Girls’. How much Bowie is too much Bowie? … wash your mouth out with soap. Reviewed here.

Reissues and deluxe sets: yet more heavyweight carry-on.

I’m probably preaching to the converted here, but New Order’s Power Corruption and Lies deluxe reissue, and Joy Division’s 40th anniversary edition of Closer proved irresistible additions, even though I’m sure I already have both albums in their original form somewhere. Maybe even on cassette. The key thing worth noting about each work is the way these albums made a mockery of the age-old “difficult second album” cliché. Of the two, I think the New Order release was the best value for money, if indeed deluxe releases are ever really value for money, with an Extras disc featuring those pesky non-album singles and previously unreleased versions of many of the album cuts.

Another landmark album celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2020 with a multiple disc deluxe edition, and yet another release I didn’t really need but couldn’t resist, was Ultravox’s Vienna, the highlight of which was the “Rarities” disc featuring early versions (‘Sleepwalk’), soundcheck versions, the single version of ‘Vienna’, the 12-inch version of ‘All Stood Still’, and a bunch of live takes (at St Albans City Hall and The Lyceum) from the year of its release. Some of this stuff is incredible to listen to again, and a timely reminder of just how special Ultravox was during its pomp.

Ditto Depeche Mode, of course, and somewhat by accident, more by crook than hook, I managed to pick up a copy of the Violator 12-inch singles box set. Multiple versions of ‘Personal Jesus’, ‘Enjoy The Silence’, ‘Policy of Truth’, and ‘World In My Eyes’, plus all of the associated b-sides … 29 tracks all up, including a dizzying 15 and a half minute ‘The Quad: Final Mix’ version of ‘Enjoy The Silence’ (phew).

An eight-volume deluxe set of Prince’s Sign of The Times, anyone? Probably unnecessary, but wow … the quality of the material he didn’t release when he was alive is all the testimony needed, if ever needed, for indisputable proof of Prince’s sheer genius. Or his commitment to his art. Or his perfectionist stance on releasing music. I found more than a few hidden gems modestly tucked away amongst the 90-plus (count em) tracks included on this deluxe set of an album I’d always previously (wrongly) regarded as being slightly inferior to Parade. I'm quite sure Parade didn’t have this many quality cast-asides, but that may yet remain to be seen. Just wow.

Last, and probably least, to be fair, a Bandcamp name-your-price I picked up was Pitch Black’s Electronomicon Live, which was essentially a prelude to the first ever vinyl release of the duo’s fantastic second album, Electronomicon, which celebrated its 20th birthday in 2020. As difficult as it might be today to process the fact that the relatively DJ/club-friendly original album had never previously been the beneficiary of a vinyl release, the live version - with tracks sourced from hours and hours of DAT tapes/live recordings from the era - stood up pretty well I thought.

Right, we’re nearly there, albeit weeks after the fact, I’ve got just one more 2020 retrospective blogpost to come, one that looks at the best EPs I picked up during the year.

2020: Close, But No Cigar

I realise I’m a bit late to be casting a beady eye all the way back to 2020, but given the retro-centric nature of everythingsgonegreen, any blogpost covering work from this century might very well be considered an unexpected bonus. Being timely, current, and relevant has never really been this blog’s thing. If you’re here, you probably already know that.

I’ve already looked at my ten “most played” or favourite new album purchases of 2020 (here), but I also want to share a few thoughts on those that made the “close, but no cigar” list … albums I picked up, enjoyed, but for whatever reason didn’t quite make the final “albums of 2020” list.

I’ll start with a couple of homegrown efforts that could easily have made the cut for that list alongside the four local albums that did. Two albums that sat well beyond the mainstream Kiwi pop saturation point that gave us commercial behemoths like Six60, Benee, and L.A.B. as key local industry flagbearers in 2020. As so often, the best local stuff tended to fly well beneath the radar of fans of the aforementioned. Which is a shame … and probably not really a shame at all.

Darren Watson’s Getting Sober For the End of the World came very close to making the cut, but it just came down to the fact that I drew the line at a strict ten. I completely get why a few of the more learned local scribes were quite happy to label the album as his best ever, and it was yet another top-notch effort from the country’s foremost exponent of the blues and roots music.

Tauranga-Auckland pop-rock outfit The Leers returned in 2020 with an (album-length) EP called The Only Way Out Is In, which was recorded in Los Angeles in late 2019, before being given legs ahead of this year’s summer festival circuit. It revealed a softer, more chart-friendly (and crucially, festival-ready) sound, and I was pretty hooked on it for a few weeks late on in the year.

 Elsewhere, Bob Dylan’s Rough and Rowdy Ways got a lot of love, and the old fella keeps coming up with new ways to remain relevant. I’ve always been a little bit hot and cold on Dylan; I absolutely love a handful of Dylan albums, but given that he’s released dozens upon dozens of albums across a 60-year timeframe, loving a “handful” probably doesn’t equate to fully paid-up fandom. Rough and Rowdy Ways was chock full of Dylan signature moments, but mostly it appealed for the way its seemingly effortless stream-of-consciousness narrative kept finding raw nerves to twist and tweak.

Only slightly younger than Bob, the ever reliable and always relatable Paul Weller came up with yet another top set in the form of On Sunset. Weller is a living legend, there’s no two ways about it, and On Sunset contained little slices of all of the many styles that Weller has thrown at us across the past four decades (and more). Rock, soul, pastoral folk, plus rhythm and blues. A genuine hybrid. Weller shows no sign of slowing down whatsoever.

I’m a big alt-80s nut. That goes without saying. Yet I somehow managed to miss everything that Dutch darkwave/goth merchants Clan of Xymox released during what might be called their peak years. I put that right last year when I picked up a copy of the 2020 album Spider On The Wall, which turned out to be a revelation, and the album got a lot of my ear-time during the year. I’ll have a dig back through the band’s extensive back catalogue to see what else I’ve missed.

Kruder and Dorfmeister’s 1995 was one of my rare CD purchases during the year. Brand new, yet somewhat ancient in that it was a collection of tunes that only ever previously saw the light of day on an (unreleased/pre-release) white label some 25 years ago. Discarded and only recently rediscovered by a duo not exactly renowned for being especially prolific since their mid-to-late 90s heyday. Whilst it doesn’t in any way scale the heights of K&D’s best stuff like Sessions (1998) - not much does, after all - I reckon there’s enough on 1995 to satisfy fans, with snippets of that trademark plush/warm production aesthetic they’ll all be very familiar with. It just seemed so appropriate that I got this one on CD, via mail order.

 When I compiled the blog’s albums of 2019 list, I bemoaned the fact that Angel Olsen’s All Mirrors was a relatively late arrival on my radar and I perhaps hadn’t given it enough attention. Oddly enough, I got that chance in 2020 when a heavily reconfigured version was released under the guise of Whole New Mess. Effectively a stripped-back variation on tracks originally found on All Mirrors, I downloaded a copy of Whole New Mess and it once again sat there in my “must listen to” folder for far too long before I got to it. But I heard enough to know it was exceptional, and I’ll be returning to Olsen again soon. I think.

As ever, Polish dub artist Radikal Guru released his latest album, Beyond The Borders, near the end of the year. He’s got form for this sort of thing - by my reckoning this is the fourth time he’s released stuff right on the cusp of the calendar change. That hasn’t stopped three of those albums featuring on my year-end “best of” lists in the past. Not this time though. I picked up Beyond The Borders far too late to give it sufficient digestion time so it missed the cut. I may (or may not) give it a full review in the coming weeks. I’m a big fan of his stuff and I’ve listened to Beyond The Borders a fair bit already in 2021.

The Heaven and Earth Association album 4849:1 was perhaps the most pleasant surprise of 2020. In a year full of too many unpleasant surprises. I wrote a little bit about it here.

There were only a handful more album purchases, none of them especially memorable, and all reviewed on the blog; Moby’s All Visible Objects, Tame Impala’s The Slow Rush, and Pet Shop Boys’ Hotspot.

But wait … we’re not out of the 2020 woods quite just yet. I’ve got a bunch of compilations and reissues, plus a bumper set of EPs, that I haven’t ticked off yet.