The Life And Times Of Terry Hall – R.I.P.

March 19, 1959 – December 18, 2022.

Terry Hall from Coventry, U.K. started his musical adventures in a punk band before getting drawn in to the Coventry Automatics, The Special AKA and then known as The Specials. 2 Tone – the label founded by Jerry Dammers and the Ska Revival in the late 70’s with The Selecter, The Beat, Madness, The Bodysnatchers, Bad Manners is well documented and researched. The orginal Specials broke up in 1981 after years of permanent touring and many great Songs and Singles.

Terry, co-Singer Neville Staples and Lynval Golding had prepared their first Fun Boy Three Single ‘The Lunatics Have Taken Over The Asylum’ already and jumpstarted a new career while the remaining Specials fragmented and faded out with a final LP ‘In The Studio’ appearing after endless Studio Sessions in 1984.

The Fun Boy Three released a bunch of incredible singles plus two great Albums, 1982 and 1983 before Terry called them quits. The surprised Neville and Lynval – on vacation then tried a new project Sunday Best with Pauline Black, from the equally dissolved Selecter which fell on dumb ears and faded after one single.
Terry had started The Colour Field (or Colourfield) heading more into melancholic British Pop with Toby Lyons and Karl Shale. Today best known for the pretty blatant but successful ‘Thinking Of You’ single still most songs showed Terry’s with and sharp observational skills. Surfaced now has this Radio Show, hosted by him in early 1985:

After various line-up changes The Colour Field faded out in obscurity after an weak second Album in 1987, recorded by Hall & Lyons with the aid of guest musicians and an over the top sterile production. This left Terry Hall to pursue a new project featuring Blair Booth and Anouchka Grose, ‘Ultra Modern Nursery Rhymes’ before teaming up with Dave Stewart of Eurythmics as Vegas for one Album.
1994 finally saw his first solo LP ‘Home’, produced by Ian Broudie with whom he kept regularly working during the 90’s, appearing as co-writer and Singer on many of Lighting Seeds releases. 1997 he released ‘Laugh’, arranged and partly co-written with Craig Gannon and 2003 a collaborative Album with Mushtaq from Fun-Da-Mental ‘The Hour Of Two Lights’ which showed less Terry Hall as we knew him than any other release before besides on “A Tale Of Woe”.

Drawn back to Ska/Dance/House Music he appeared as guest of Junkie XL, Lautrec, Tricky and on many occasions live and on record with The Dub Pistols with the brilliant ‘Problem Is’ for example.

Finally he seemed at ease with his past success and roots and slowly the possibility of a Specials Reunion became real. In 2009 all the Specials (minus Jerry Dammers) got on the road again for a 30th Anniversary Tour and surprisingly stayed together for the following years, also touring ‘More Specials’.

With the core of Terry, Lynval and Horace (Neville Staples had to quit due Health issues and John Bradbury died in 2015, Roddy Radiation got lost again on the way) The Specials MK III released the Studio Album ‘Encore’ in 2019 which stayed true to the original spirit of The Specials, not shying away from any current issues. This was followed in 2021 with a cover album ‘Protest Songs 1924-2012’, an all new album was in preparation but this was not meant to be.

Terry Hall leaves three sons, two with his former wife and one with his later one. He fought depressions and traumas and was one of the first Patrons and supporters of Tonic, aiming to help people in the music industry fighting against mental illness.

The world lost a brilliant wordsmith and a unique voice of his generation.

(12 Movements Of) BOOM – Keith LeBlanc

Incredible 23 years have passed without an regular Keith LeBlanc solo album now, hard to believe as he’s been all over the place all of the time but except some reissues on his / Blanc bandcamp lately there was hardly any solo activity besides 2008’s Chess Moves – Future Blues Project not many seemed to know what to make of as it was a strange hybrid of original recordings with added Instrumentation by Keith, Doug (Wimbish) and Skip (McDonald) – maybe best described as found on dc “Re-production and partial re-instrumentation of old blues tracks using the original tapes”. Then there where regrouping activities as Tack>>Head live and even culminating into the “For The Love Of Money” cover versions album in 2014 which didn’t exactly overmatch it’s expectations. I’m not even sure if the title was meant ironically.
Anyway; 12 Movements Of Boom does.
Of course it might be there where no expectations to see another KLB album which was really regrettable as his incredible mix of electro, hip hop, funk, jazz and whatever style comes to his mind held together by his rhythmic brilliance somehow managed to build up to amazing heights, especially on Time Traveller (Blanc Records 1992) and Stranger Than Fiction (Enigma / Nettwerk 1989) two albums I regularly return to. The selected cast of guest musicians old and new support this all-in vision.
His long time allies Doug & Skip ‘Little Axe’ and a shelved but not forgotten tape with recordings of vocals and poetry from the late Andy Fairley given to him in the 90’s build the solid core of Boom. He dives more into mellower jazz ambience and hip hop here than in the 1990’s without loosing himself and his trademark edgy beats. A very welcome highlight.

A week later, October 25th he released the companion album – Boom Instrumentals & Bonus Tracks.

More Blanc Records digital releases, rarities and reissues are online at bandcamp and further infos on keithLeblanc.com .

Dub Highway – Roots Zombie is back

Summer is gone finally, so the Dub Producers from Rootz Zombie found time to release a new album via Culture Dub Records and their own bandcamp simultanously. This one is more in the vein of their 2018 first collaborative release “Sounds From The House”, again with wonderful artwork from Legras Fist, a blend of harmonies and grooves enriched with prominent vocalists Sammy Gold, Thomas Anton (from Travelerz), Mista B, Little R and Bobby Surround.

While the download is free you can support the artists and label directly through a pay what you want option @ bandcamp and find more music in both cases, of course it’s just a tip of an iceberg but a good starting point into the current french dub scene as it can be.
Roots Zombie from Bordeaux are a great example because they’re not to strict stylistic and explore Bass Music, Hip Hop, House whatever makes them fancy but thankfully not all at once which makes it a pleasure to listen to.

:zoviet*france: Next Sound – call for help

“This is an unedited recording of our live performance at the 6th Next Sound festival in Kyiv, in 2018.

We are making this available as a free download and in doing so, urge you to make a donation to a not for profit humanitarian aid organisation that’s supporting people in Ukraine.

There are many of these all over the world so you should be able to find one near you.
In the UK, donations to the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), an alliance of 15 charities, will be matched by the government, up to a maximum of £20million:
donation.dec.org.uk/ukraine-humanitarian-appeal

Recorded live in concert at Next Sound, Saturday 6 October 2018
http://nextsound.org/2018/
Venue: Closer, Kyiv, Ukraine
https://ra.co/promoters/44245

Unedited stereo recording from the on-stage mixer operated by :zoviet*france: (this is a mirror sound image of what was heard by the audience)

Composed, performed and mixed by :zoviet*france: As with all of our live performances, this was completely improvised
1st edition AAC 320 kbps, released as a free download 8 March 2022
© 2018 copyright control
cover photo: Aerial view of Kyiv Oblast © :zoviet*france:”

www.uno-fluechtlingshilfe.de/spenden-ukraine

SP 030 & SP 031 – OhmikRon EP & full Album!

Urbanik Resonance EP

I am very proud about the two recent releases by Hungarian Dub Master Kálmán Nemeth published lately. The EP tracks where recorded early this Spring and released with extraordinary artwork by TapeAir from Budapest. The new album – his first since the excellent Eleven from early 2020 collects recordings from 2021 to late 2022 – made in isolation and compiled thematically coherent.

Pandemic Dub

I rediscovered my love for dub techno (which started with some of the first basic channel 12″s I bought when in Berlin during the early 1990’s) while working from home. It helped to keep me focused, most tracks aren’t too short so if fits in easily with the patient needed sometimes and besides there is a steady but not too dominant groove involved. I know this is not the real point here but it’s easy to enjoy the wordless space created here while being busy with whatever.
OhmikRon was one of dozens artists I discovered via bandcamp and soundcloud and he moves never too much into ambient ambiguity and this makes discovering his releases (and DJ Mixes) a pleasure.

Both releases are Digital Only.

Free Agent : Eric Random

Eric Ramsden from Manchester was one of a handful of early electronic post punk pioneers, unique and uncompromising not completely unlike Robert Rental, Fad Gadget, . He was involved with early Factory acts, the New Hormones label, Buzzcocks’ Pete Shelley as The Tiller Boys and maybe best documented with Cabaret Voltaire (as guest musician on record, as opening act on tour and fully absorbed on the Pressure Company live LP). From solo output up to putting a band together (The Bedlamites) and getting recruited for the then Manchester based femme fatale junkie legend Nico as tourband member – with additional stints in the Suns Of Arqua, Psychic TV and the Durutti Column.
This short bio shows a lot unknown facts, thankfully supported by the man himself about his whereabouts and his surprising return to electronic music starting with ‘Man Dog’ in 2014 on Klanggalerie after a 18 years hiatus and continuing until the present day. Find his latest Album ‘No-Gohere as CD and DL and a live recording from 2019 promoting the ‘Wire Me Up‘ 2*12″ on soundcloud.

An incredible find, many, many thanks to Hugo Ball.

Soft Cell – Forever The Same?

Soft Cell & Pet Shop Boys: “Purple Zone” (Extended Mix)
This 12″ Video Remix was edited by Myles Matisse.

Official video for “Purple Zone” see here.

“Purple Zone” is taken from Soft Cell’s forthcoming new album, *Happiness not included, out on May, 6th.

While the digital single is out since late March and already the most succesfull Soft Cell single since a very long time the physical
singles will be out as soon as May (CD) and November (12″).
Of course all with different mixes. The CD single even has an extra non-album track while the 12″ tracklist shows 2 exclusive Pet Shop Boys Remixes.

Pre-ordering now just in time for X-Mas is possible here.

14 Years On : bauhaus still undead

Drink The New Wine” was recorded last year during lockdown with the four members sharing audio files. The track employs the Surrealists’ ‘Exquisite Corpse’ device whereby each artist adds to the piece without seeing what the others have done. Bauhaus have used this technique in the past to great effect. The title refers to the very first Cadavre exquis’ drawing rendered by André Breton, Marcel Duchamp, Jacques Prévert and Yves Tanguy which included words which when strung together made up the sentence, ‘Le cadavre exquis boiara le vin nouveau’ (‘The exquisite corpse will drink the new wine.”) For the recording, the four musicians each had one minute and eight tracks at their disposal plus a shared sixty seconds plus four tracks for a composite at the end. All done without hearing what the others had laid down. The only common link being a prerecorded beat courtesy of Kevin. The final playback came as synchronistic revelation.

[Release Statement]

Written and Produced by Bauhaus

Art Direction and Video Design by
-Regan Catam
-Adrian Burke (Awen Studios Ojai)

© 2022 Bauhaus Music

lost in musick II