Fruits De Mer Records "Strange Fish" collection are an adventurous series of albums of instrumental music inspired by krautrock/kosmische, classic and new progressive rock, drone, sequencer/synthesiser, psychedelia, and more, performed by artists who followers of Fruits De Mer Records may already know plus several who are appearing here on vinyl for the first time.
A1: Craig Padilla - Full Moon World
A2: Craig Padilla - Secret Language
B1: Sendelica - Strange Fish
Strange Fish 1 is split between two artists, Craig Padilla from the USA and Sendelica from south west Wales, and contains only three - but lengthy - pieces. On side one Craig Padilla's "Full Moon World" (a track from 2005, I notice) starts quietly with something of a Gong-vibe to it with spacey synth sounds and a sub-bass under arpeggiated synths and a plaintive synth melody creating a very dreamy atmosphere. Halfway through things speed up with some minimalistic Kraftwerkian electronic percussion and ever-more complex and intertwining melodies. "Secret Language", recorded five years later by Craig Padilla and cohort Bert Hawkins (credited with "strange analog synth sounds"), feels more cinematic with a bass drone and spacey sounds panning across the stereo spectrum and having an ambient Jean-Michel Jarre vibe. There are lots of bubbly synths and pads, and again - halfway through - things change as a counter rhythm sequence is introduced.
Side two contains a side-long single piece by Sendelica which was almost certainly re-titled for inclusion in this series of albums. "Strange Fish" adds guitars and bass to the synthy whooshes and spacey sounds. After a weird intro in which a riff is gradually slowed down, a spooky atmosphere is introduced with Western-style guitar strums and a ghostly voice-like synth drifting in and out of the mix and sheets of white noise. It's a few minutes before the track truly takes off with a rapid repetitive bass riff providing some foundation, over which unexpectedly a saxophone appears. The main theme fades and the track continues with octaved bass and minimalistic guitar responses evolving into a new riff over which a heavily effected trumpet and Kraftwerkian "geiger counter" herald the arrival of some acoustic (or acoustic-sounding) guitar taking us into the piece's final phase, and finally fading out with the sound of kids playing in a playground. All in all, a very interesting piece, although perhaps not as coherent as Padilla's more formulaic pieces on the other side of the record.
A1: Moonweevil - Condentia
A2: Vespero - Red Machine
A3: Organic Is Orgasmic - At Dawn Of Men
B1: Sendelica - 80% Neon Bridge Of Sighs
B2: Temple Music - From The Serene Republic
B3: The Grand Astoria - Space Orchid vs Massive Drumkit
C1: Cat Frequency - The Fragmentation of St. Veronica's Veil
C2: Julie's Haircut - Tarazed
C3: Julie's Haircut - Asioli (recorded with Valerio Cosi & Tiziano Bianchi)
C4: Weevil dropping
D1: Mechanik - Kwangmyongsong
D2: Mechanik - Radian
D3: Mechanik - You Yourself Are The Teacher And The Guru
Strange Fish 2 is a double album containing 13 tracks from nine artists from the UK (Moonweevil, Sendelica, Temple Music, The Cat Frequency), Italy (Julie's Haircut), Spain (Mechanik) and Russia (Vespero, Organic Is Orgasmic, The Grand Astoria). Side one kicks off with a very brief piece from Moonweevil which I can only liken to Monty Python's "Silly Noises". Track two is by Vespero, who we last heard reinterpreting Faust's "Jennifer" on one side of the Fruits De Mer Annual 2013 EP. With "Red Machine" we are treated to hypnotic Eastern rhythms, melancholic violin-like melodies, arpeggiators and space synth sounds augmented by the restrained sax and upbeat drums. Finishing with an almost Bloomdido Bad de Grasse-esque sax, you'd be forgiven for thinking this was a Gong out-take. Side one finishes with Organic Is Orgasmic's 12-minute plus "At Dawn Of Men" with starts gently with strings, synth and guitar overlaid with a sax melody before drums and bass join and really get things going. The guitar textures remind me of Andy Summers, this could almost be a Police instrumental (and that is meant in a good way).
Sendelica return on side two with "80% Neon Bridge Of Sighs", a track recorded in Stockport - I'm guessing at a live performance. It certainly has that live energy to it and also benefits from the addition of drums to the line-up, something that was conspicuous by their absence on the side-long piece on Strange Fish 1. The piece also features snippets of conversation; I can't help wondering if the audience was miked up? Next up is Temple Music, who previously magnificently re-interpreted The Hollies' "Pegasus" on the other side of the Fruits De Mer Annual 2013 EP that I have already mentioned. "From The Serene Republic" is a strident up-tempo guitar, bass and drum (machine?) piece with guitar synth melodies and that trademark krautrock motorik driving rhythm. Finally on this disc, The Grand Astoria's eccentrically named "Space Orchid vs Massive Drumkit" sees a more "earthy" hippy-esque sound with acoustic guitars and sitar over a fluid bass and drums. An electric guitar riff asserts itself in the latter part of the song, the drums up the tempo and we are treated to a synth solo.
Onto side three (or record 2, side 1, if you prefer) which begins with The Cat Frequency's "The Fragmentation of St. Veronica's Veil". The organ/synth(?) drone at the beginning of the track possibly outstays its welcome as the listener is left waiting for the piece to actually "begin". Thankfully an arpeggiated synth arrives and is soon followed by some lead guitar wrangling, but the whole thing is too ponderous and you're left thinking that not only does the track not seen to get started but that it doesn't go anywhere either. The next two songs are by Julie's Haircut (an unusual name for an Italian band). "Tarazed" has a gentle fairytale quality to begin with but then the bassline starts, the drums kick in and a hypnotic groove develops. We are even treated to some vocals (yes, on an instrumental compilation!) in the form of wordless "Aaaaahhhh"s. Having listened to several sides of purely instrumental vinyl already, the human voice is most welcome! "Asioli" has a very avant garde piano-led intro with percussion. Again, a bassline kicks in and establishes a groove behind the keys. Vocals, sax, trumpet, and heavily effected guitars drift into the mix creating rich layers of sound. Faster drums and a counter-bassline create a greater sense of urgency towards the finish as things build up to a crescendo. Finally, side three closes with a very brief piece listed only as "Weevil dropping" which I assume is Moonweevil once again with more weird sounds and "silly noises", which - if you are not careful - could go on for ever, so watch out for that locked groove at the end of this side.
Side four (or record 2, side 2) is devoted to the Spanish band Mechanik. "Kwangmyongsong" consists of a bass and drum groove overlaid with guitar echo effects, synths, electronics, etc, and has echoes of Neu! perhaps. The guitar track develops and intensifies the melody before the whole thing ends with various spacey and electronic sound effects. "Radian" starts meekly with bass and guitars in an almost imperceptible melody but grows in intensity and builds up a sense of foreboding of what might happen next. It's very cinematic in feel with excellent use of loops and multiple echoes. Finally, "You Yourself Are The Teacher And The Guru" makes use of radio/TV cut-ups and delayed/looped guitars, with solid repetitive bass and drums providing a backbone onto which to hang all the echoes on. Again, the track builds in intensity, rises to a climax and falls away into echoes and EBow guitars - and a final droned note - which again could go on indefinitely thanks to the locked groove ending this side of vinyl.
A1: Palace of Swords - Live At The Aberdeen Witch Trials 1597
A2: Zenith: Unto The Stars - Gemini
A3: Earthling Society - Theme From A Vampire's Kiss
A4: Earthling Society - The Dream
A5: Earthling Society - Kiss Of The Vampire - Morning Glory
A5: Palace of Swords - Vicus Lemurum
B1: Dead Pylons - Theme From The Dead Pylons
B2: Dead Pylons - Osiris
B3: Dead Pylons - Dream Cargoes
B4: The Golden Cake Company - Thrum Mystique
B5: Palace of Swords - The Temple Of Golden Rays
C1: The Golden Cake Company - Arthurian
C2: Vert:x - A Floating Mass Of Metal And Heavy Electricity
C3: Vert:x - Bad Calibration
C4: Vert:x - Killer Beez
D1: Black Tempest - Energy Of Stars
D2: Frobisher Neck - Underwater Starblob
Strange Fish 3 is another double album, although this time all the artists are from the United Kingdom (Zenith: Unto The Stars, Earthling Society, Dead Pylons, Vert:x, Black Tempest, and Frobisher Neck all from England, Palace of Swords from Scotland, and The Golden Cake Company from Wales). Record one, side one opens with Palace of Swords' "Live At The Aberdeen Witch Trials 1597" which with its repeated drum pattern and swirling keys feels like a summons to a gallows. "Gemini" by Zenith: Unto The Stars furnishes the listener with more swirling synths and pads, plus an almost Arabian melody implying a sense of travel. The following three tracks on this side are a suite of tracks from Earthling Society with the umbrella title of "The Vampires Kiss". "Theme From A Vampire's Kiss" features nice dulcimer sounds and has almost an Ennio Morricone Western soundtrack feel to it. "The Dream" features gorgeous crystalline synths and sees Earthling Society mainman Fred Laird joined by Hilda Tittington on suitably vampire-esque vocals. "Kiss Of The Vampire - Morning Glory" seems to have conflicting rhythms at the same time - perhaps the music is meant to imply some sort of revelation but for me it doesn't seem to go anywhere until the acoustic guitar and "syntar" (?) are introduced into the mix for a mellow acoustic section. Oh, and recorders too! Palace of Swords opened this side of vinyl and they get to close it too with "Vicus Lemurum" consisting of a guitar loop and crystalline synth sounds (am I allowed to say "crystalline" again?), which together create magical circular patterns - musical fairy rings!
The first half of side two is given over to three tracks from Dead Pylons. The first is "Theme From Dead Pylons" and sounds like something the late lamented BBC Radiophonic Workshop might have created. It certainly has that horror/Sci-Fi cinematic quality to it. "Osiris" has an exciting and original electronic rhythm and bass guitar line; it's as if experimental electronic meets dub! It even has that melodica sound that reggae/dub producers love so much. "Dream Cargoes" has a lazy dreamy feel and perhaps a more authentic "kraut" sound than many of the other tracks here. On to The Golden Cake Company and "Thrum Mystique" which sees layers of arpeggiated synth and echoed guitar collaborating to create a wall of sound. The resultant spacey sounds are quite trance inducing, whilst subtle melodies, FX and changes in texture don't allow it to stray too far into a totally ambient soundscape. Palace of Swords again provide the side's closing piece. "The Temple Of Golden Rays" features more repetitive synth loops and pads, overlaid with subtle melodies. It sounds like a piece from one of FM3's Buddha Machines.
Side three opens and we're back again with The Golden Cake Company and a piece entitled "Arthurian". Once again, I detect a Gong "space rock" influence here in the intro with weird synth whooshes and glissando guitar. It noodles along for a while without a melody emerging then an arpeggiator starts up over some guitar gliss creating a subtle melody of sorts. It has all the right ingredients but this cake isn't quite as golden as I'd have liked. The remainder of this side of vinyl is given over to Vert:x, actually a one-man band comprised of Neil Whitehead who records using basic 4-track analogue equipment. "A Floating Mass Of Metal And Heavy Electricity" consists of sub-bass rumble and the by-now obligatory "spacey sounds". Unfortunately it's all a bit too abstract for my tastes. "Bad Calibration" is better, with guitar and bass and a good old-fashioned motorik beat. The use of "basic 4-track analogue equipment" is apparent here with the general lo-fi nature of the recording; nevertheless it feels all the more fitting for krautrock style music. Perhaps it's more La Dusseldorf than Neu! but it's definitely one of the better tracks in this set. "Killer Beez" fades in slowly and could be variation or remix of the previous piece with some serious phasing/flanging going on. (In fact, because of the nature of the music it took me a while to realise that a lot of fluff had built up on my stylus and the record was skipping. There was me thinking it was homage to Neu! 2, side two!)
Side four consists of just two pieces. Black Tempest's "Energy Of Stars" is nearly 13 minutes in length and features the usual spacey sounds juxtaposed with flutes, synth pads, etc, and after a couple of minutes along comes the inevitable arpeggiated synth part, plus what sounds like a violin melody (electric violin perhaps?) then some vibey/piano sounds. The rhythm could almost be taken directly from the middle section of Kraftwerk's "Autobahn". Around the middle of the piece, the arpeggiator fades out and we're left with pads and spacey sounds. The resultant effect is a little like listening to an organ in a cathedral... before some wild synths enter the mix and things start to get very busy. I fancy there are choral voices being used here too (mellotron or modern equivalent perhaps?), but soon the whole dies away to reveal a simple piano motif before the piece comes to a close. The second and last track on this side - and indeed the final piece on Strange Fish 3 - is by a name that should be familiar to most collectors of Fruits De Mer Records product, Frobisher Neck a.k.a. Tony Swettenham. "Underwater Starblob" has an organic almost "backwards" feel to it (use of melloton, tape loops and backwards echo on some of the sounds). It manages to very nicely set up an atmosphere; a rich and intriguing collage of sounds. Supposedly there was a sitar in the mix too, but my ears couldn't pinpoint it.
A1: The Cat Frequency - Dreaming Of A Wooden Fish
A2: Organic Is Orgasmic - Chinese Horoscope
A3: Organic Is Orgasmic - Lifeless Void
A4: Zenith: Unto The Stars - Juno Quartet
A5: Zenith: Unto The Stars - Con Bala
A6: The Vox Humana - Shortwave Radio And The Ionosphere
B1: James McKeown - Avebury
B2: James McKeown - Euclid Dreaming
B3: James McKeown - Ursa Minor
B4: James McKeown - Sublime Knight Elect
B5: Temple Music - Dreaming of Flying East
B6: The Bordellos - Spirals
Other than Russia's Organic Is Orgasmic, Strange Fish 4 consists solely on British acts with only The Vox Humana representing Wales and all the other acts being English. The Cat Frequency open the proceedings on side 1 with "Dreaming Of A Wooden Fish" (a suitable catty title) which is an organic sounding piece with picked acoustic and electric guitars, having a sitar-like quality, and maybe there was some backwards guitar in there too? Organic is Orgasmic have two pieces in a row here: "Chinese Horoscope" features a wah-wahed guitar over a synth melody and some earthy-sounding bass, and "Lifeless Void" has bubbling synths, pads and some weird pitch shifting effects. Next up comes a pair of tracks from Zenith: Unto The Stars: "Juno Quartet" has a lush ambient spacey feel and builds nicely in intensity as the piece progresses and fades away again. "Con Bala" again starts with ambient pads, with a voice-like sound, and gives me the impression of hanging in space and slowly drifting. The Vox Humana's "Shortwave Radio And The Ionosphere" closes side one with more delicate picked acoustic guitar over a slow bass synth backing and various strange sounds in the mix (apparently MiniDisc loops and 10-band transistor radio receiver). A delicate synth melody line is picked out whilst a distorted electric guitar occupies the sonic territory in the background. The human voices from the radio receiver are quite welcome having listened to so much instrumental music on these albums.
Onto the final side then. Side two features four tracks in a row from James McKeown. "Avebury" is a repeating acoustic guitar and bass pattern overlaid with some swirly synths. "Euclid Dreaming" has more acoustic guitar, bass, and a glockenspiel melody making for a delicate dream-like quality. "Ursa Minor" showcases more of McKeown's acoustic guitar playing, with some EBow guitar providing counter-melodies in the background. "Sublime Knight Elect" sees acoustic guitar and various effects, more EBows, distorted guitar and picked individual notes all combining to give a hazy effect. The reference of "Oblique Strategies and tape" in the sleevenotes is lost on me here. The penultimate track is by Temple Music and it took me a while to realise that I wasn't still listening to the previous artist's work. "Dreaming of Flying East" has more acoustic guitar picking over a synth backing. It has quite a whimsical feel, and some spacey FX (I wondered what had happened to them) part way through. Finally, The Bordellos' "Spirals" is a stripped back keyboard "lament"-like melody. I'm not sure what happened to the guitars, bass, percussion and harmonica mentioned in the sleeve notes.
Perhaps also for my own tastes the music on the whole was too "progressive" in style and not "krautrock" enough. Although I appreciate that "krautrock" is a very broad church, personally I like acts like Neu!, Harmonia, Cluster, Can, Faust, but I absolutely cannot abide the likes of Amon Duul (I and II), who to my ears sound just like American hippy shit rather than a musical style that could only have evolved in post WWII Germany. Maybe, this is a fault in my own tastes, but give me some good old motorik beats and a one-chord guitar riff and I'm happy. For myself I would have condensed this whole set of records down into a double album. I feel there is a lot of filler. It's not that there are any bad tracks included as such, it's just that a lot of it was OK when I wanted it to be AMAZING. I would have liked to have heard more vocals too. I mean, krautrock often had vocals, so why not?
Anyway, there's a lot more information and soundclips over on the Fruits De Mer website, and I believe each of the volumes are still available either singly or as a set (the set comes in its own outer sleeve too) so if this style of music appeals to you why not give them a whirl?
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