Out of all the nine tracks I produced for Ape last year this is my personal favourite.
It’s got this strange dark undercurrent going on- with monks chanting and a lot of dissonance-some people find it quite hard to listen to but it seems absolutely perfect to me—balanced-but just teetering on the edge of disaster.
I played it to someone once in headphones and they said it felt like their head was being pulled apart!! Someone else described it in a blog as sounding like “making filthy love in a railway arch, whilst on acid, in 1940s New York”. Which of course I was thrilled by.
When it was in its early days as a bunch of unconnected noises put together by me and Andy, I played it to some other singers to see if they were interested in contributing to it- the reaction was “no- its shit!!”.- hahah – But Jen took these completely random bits of music and glued them into something completely different. From then on it just needed organizing and arranging. I spent months lovingly tweaking and moving it about in a dark obsessive manner.
The video came about as I was messing about watching old cartoons and simultaneously listening to music. I slowed down a Little Audrey cartoon from 1949 to half speed and it’s as if it was made for it- quite spooky really.
It’s on the Hard Listening EP which of course everyone should buy.
Posted by steve at September 2nd, 2010 5:19 am | Add Comment
How can you resist buying an album when this is the first review it gets.
Read extracts from what critic Ben Gott had to say in his review for kevchino.com
…painful for me to review…
…almost unlistenable.
…lovely it is not.
(more…)
Posted by steve at March 26th, 2007 11:35 am | 24 Comments

Award winning animator Stephen Wichuk, has made this enigmatic short film to accompany Veda Hilles instrumental piece ‘White Flowers’, a track from her current album ‘Return Of The Kildeer’.
He uses traditional stopframe animation techniques and has built a beautiful miniature set to create a worrying yet wonderful dreamlike atmosphere.
Buy ‘Return Of The Kildeer’
Posted by steve at March 26th, 2007 9:52 am | 4 Comments
Peter Blegvad and Peter Blegvad the two halves of a self divided, chat to each other about the making of Orpheus The Lowdown, a bit part play for the fable minded.
Peter and Andy Partridge recorded the album over a number of years, the tragic love story of Orpheus and Eurydice is retold with words and music through an alchemy of sounds.
Buy ‘Orpheus The Lowdown

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Posted by steve at March 20th, 2007 5:48 am | 2 Comments
XTC’s Andy Partridges latest project sees him team up with the original XTC keyboard player Barry Andrews and drummer Martyn Barker.
The three of them have produced an entire album from a series of live totally improvised sessions.
This two disc set also titled ‘Monstrance’ is out now.
Listen to the opening track ‘I Lovely Cosmonaut’ a disparate floating exploration of a piece which finds our three musical explorers high above the earth.
Buy ‘Monstrance’

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Posted by steve at March 12th, 2007 5:54 am | 27 Comments