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 on September 2nd, 2010 at 5:19 am | Add Comment
The limited edition CD by Andy Partridge called POWERS is exclusively available from the Ape Store but is going fast. Hurry or you’ll miss bagging one of only 500 copies of this spooky set of sound pieces inspired by the sci-fi art of Richard M Powers.
Here is a taster of the project. The first piece from the disc and a collage of some of the sensational book jacket art that caught Andy’s imagination at a very young age and led ultimately to this release.
buy Powers CD GBP 19.99 inc VAT
Posted by steve on July 20th, 2010 at 3:44 am | 1 Comment »
From Albuquerque to the UK. Ape’s latest signing Jen Olive, makes a quick dash over to our shores to promote her astounding new album ‘Warm Robot’ released on 29th March, with a series of live shows this month.
To coincide with the dates here’s the NEW video for Querquehouse, made by Jen and shot in her home town Albuqeurque.
Check out the rest of the shows. The whole of the Ape Crew were out in force (including Ape master A.P) in Swindon to watch Jen’s first UK show. We were all mightily impressed.
BUY Warm Robot
Posted by steve on April 9th, 2010 at 9:20 am | 1 Comment »
On her recent trip to the UK Jen was filmed giving this rather divine solo rendition of the song Querquehouse from her brand new album WARM ROBOT. buy
With camerawork and lights by Mitch Keene, and the sound captured by APEs Stuart Rowe and Andy P, Jen sits and fingerpicks her way through the song in a mesmerising fashion. If this is the quality of her performances then you’d be a silly billy to miss her when she arrives in the UK next week for her one woman mini tour. Check out the tour news item for details, in the meantime drink in this film and enjoy.
Posted by steve on March 31st, 2010 at 4:18 am | 2 Comments »
Dear Earthlings, not only did we create the extraordinarily beautiful COMPLETE AND UTTER DUKES boxset, we now find they’re going VERY fast. Dont delay in ordering this sumptuous set packed with vinyl albums and single, CDs, jigsaw and special T shirt, because we are committed to making a VERY limited run and you wont want to miss this ultimate Dukes-out. We wouldnt want you to be cursing yourself later,what with Yule around the corner and all.
So before you dash over to the shop and snap up a pre-order, linger a while and remind yourself of how spot on/stupid/super/superior and singalong the Dukes of Stratosphear are by taking a peak at the video for ‘Mole From the Ministry’.
Thats in the box too!
Order your BOX
Mole From The Ministry:
Play Now |
Play in Popup |
Download
Posted by steve on November 10th, 2009 at 5:18 am | Add Comment
This video was shot in the wild open countryside of Sussex. ‘Incredible Visions’ is taken from The Milk & Honey Bands latest album Dog Eared Moonlight. BUY
The band will be appearing at the Bestival on The Isle Of Wight, 11th September 09 on the bandstand stage at midday.
BBC Radio 1’s Rob da Bank is curating the whole event so catch TMHB live, where they’ll be performing tracks from Dog Eared Moonlight.
Posted by steve on September 1st, 2009 at 11:23 am | 2 Comments »
Watch the stunning short film shot in the deepest Sussex countryside for The Milk & Honey Bands forthcoming single ‘Mary Faith Autumn’.
Classic Rock’s Johnny Dee reviewed the Dog Eared Moonlight album BUY as -
” An album that shift gears between Crowded House at their most majestic and the authentic melancholly that proved so successful for David Gray.Wonderful.”
Posted by steve on May 12th, 2009 at 3:47 am | 2 Comments »
Canadian queen of invention Veda Hille commissioned Quinne Rodgers and her team of experts to make this video for Lucklucky, a track from Vedas latest album for Ape, This Riot Life. BUY
Posted by steve on March 25th, 2009 at 4:59 am | Add Comment
Wizard musician and producer Stuart Rowe, ringmaster to a flying circus of musical contributors known as Lighterthief, has his first Digital EP Maximalism due for release on Ape on 16th March. buy
The three tracks are Lover, Falling Into The Future and All Done Things with head Ape Andy Partridge playing guitar and singing on all titles.
As a taster Stuart has edited together this short film with excerpts from the EP to whet your appetite for his sonic adventures.
Posted by steve on March 9th, 2009 at 11:09 am | 3 Comments »
Watch the video of the song ‘Disappear’, the forthcoming free single available from this site from 23rd February. One of the many highlights from the new album Dog Eared Moonlight released 9th March.
Frontman Robert White say’s ‘We wanted to do something very simple that actually resembled us playing the song as we would play it in rehearsal. So what better way than filming it where we rehearse… it looked a little too realistic until we made it black and white and zapped it through the ‘Anton Corbijn Filter’ and suddenly it looked quite moody and posh.’
The video was shot and directed by Robert and Jan and edited by Robert.’
Posted by steve on February 4th, 2009 at 9:56 am | 1 Comment »
