The Return Of The Free CD Box

Today's post is another raid on the box of free CDs that with magazines, a random selection of three tracks from two CDs, both coincidentally from December 2021. First is Will Sergeant, Bunnyman and solo artist. Themes For 'Grind' originally came out in 1982, Will going analogue synth and experimental ambient, an album of  eleven tracks. At first all were titled Untitled but since all have been named Scene followed by a Roman numeral, I through to XI. 

Scene V

Scene V was on Electronic Sounds Best Of 2021 CD, a double album with both new and re- issued music from that year starting with cover star LoneLady and finishing with Me Lost Me. Scene V is early 80s, Cold War/ Liverpool experimentalism, the sound of someone spending some time alone with a room full of synths. Theme For 'Grind' is available to buy in full at Sgt. Fuzz's Bandcamp page. 

Over at Mojo in December 2021 the cover stars were hoary old Led Zeppelin in all their 70s pomp. The free CD however was compiled by Idles, titled Acts Of Resistance, and pulled together a disparate fifteen artists and songs from that year's releases and re- issues, kicking off with Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds' The Mercy Seat and wending its way through Bush Tetras, Idles, Au Pairs, and James Holden among others, with these two finding themselves transferred from disc to my hard drive. 

Fisherman's Blues (Live In Toronto 1989)

In 1989 The Waterboys were riding the crest of a wave, the Big Music replaced by traditional Irish and Scottish music, a move partly due to fiddle player Steve Wickham joining the band as well as Mike Scott's move to Dublin in 1986. The album Fisherman's Blues was a huge success, crossing over and winning new fans. The title track is Dylan- esque, the band in full reel behind Mike and the lyrics all about escape- 'I wish I was a fisherman/ Tumblin' on the seas/ Far away from dry land/ And it's bitter memories... I wish I was a brakeman/ On a hurtlin' fevered train'- and conclude with 'Light in my head/ You in my arms'. The live recording was from Toronto's Masonic Hall, 11th October 1989, a long way from home but in sweeping form. It came as part of a seven CD boxed set of the group in 1989- 90, Fisherman's Blues and Right To Roam album, a huge number of live recordings, versions, remasters and outtakes. 

1000 Miles

1000 Miles is by Dirty Three and their 1996 album Horse Stories. Jim White, Mick Turner and Warren Ellis formed the band in 1992, instrumental music on guitar, drums and violin. 1000 Miles is cinematic, but one of those films that stays with you afterwards leaving you slightly disturbed. 

Things Inside

Will Sergeant has spent over four decades as Echo And The Bunnymen's guitarist and has at times found space/ refuge outside the group to record more experimental solo material. I've written about his Poltergeist group before, swirling instrumental, psychedelic rock. I only recently discovered his Bandcamp page which is a treasure trove of material from his 1982 album Themes For GRIND album to more recent solo work. 

In 2012 Will released an album called Things Inside, ten instrumental tracks that find him playing a variety of musical instruments- a lot of acoustic guitar parts with circling finger picking riffs and lines but also toy piano, bells, autoharp and chimes- and producing some lovely hypnotic, contemplative pieces of music, some distance from his Bunnymen guitar sounds and riffs. This one is Eastern Bells complete with some hazy, out of focus landscapes and beaches in the video. Former Bunnyman bandmate Les Pattinson is in there somewhere too. You can find and buy it at Bandcamp. 

From his posts on Twitter it seems Will lives somewhere north of Liverpool where rural Lancashire meets the Fylde coast. In 2013 he released a new album as Glide, two very long pieces of music that seem to capture that part of the country very well, the slightly bleak, windswept coastline and flatlands. Assemblage One and Two are both around twenty minutes long, synths and drones with some lovely bubbling sounds and melody lines coming in and out. ideal music for headphones while out walking. Find it here. 

Will's first album as GRIND came out in 1982, a very experimental electronic album, eleven tracks, all untitled in 1982 but later renamed as numbers and now titled Scene I through to Scene XI (adding to the sense this album is the soundtrack to a film that never got made). Themes For GRIND is very much the product of time spent listening to the West German groups of the 1970s, Cluster and Faust, as well as Brian Eno. Atmospheric ambient and very good indeed. It had a limited edition vinyl re- issue last year which I missed out on but you can get the digital at Bandcamp. 

In 2000 a GRIND 12" was released with track No. 2 and No. 5 from the 1982 album coupled with two new remixes. One was by The Mindwinder (Joe McKechnie). The other was courtesy of Two Lone Swordsmen. Weatherall and Tenniswood remix Will's ambient soundscape in a style which would have easily found a home on their Tiny Reminders album from the same year, minimal abstract machine funk/ techno- static, an insistent drumbeat some whirling, spooked out synths, a juddering bass and a snatch of a ghostly choir. 

Theme For GRIND No. 2 (Reground by The Two Lone Swordsmen)