the shamen: c/d

The really gentle jingle-jangle guitar on the original version of Possible Worlds is really reminding me of one of the tracks on New Order's Technique (especially the way it kind of wends in and out of the 303-bass-solo) but I cannot for the life of me remember which one? (maybe Dream Attack)

There are so many places on the orig mix of En-Tact where I'm like... "did this sample something I know; or did something else I know sample this?"

Coz I'm always like "hey, this is a TGU song" or "hmmm, this is an 808 State song" - but maybe it's not, they just shared members or remixers or something. (Or is it just that I spent too many nights tripping to all these records together, that they have just merged in my memory into one thing.)

((But I swear there is a Transglobal Underground song that uses the *exact* same bassline as Evil Is Even.)

THAT'S A KRAFTWERK SAMPLE YOU FUX0RS!!!! (how did they not get sued into the next galaxy for that?)

You absolute fanboy little fucker (j/k ILU ILU ILU)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBHvG3zdRXU

https://www.discogs.com/artist/124853-Gobo-Loco

(Did I say Hütteresque somewhere upthread?)

Alice in Wonderland, swing, Mad Hatter, everything.

Also the Jack of Clubs!

I have just finished listening to UV for the first time, and erm... I... erm... I DEMAND TO SPEAK TO THE MANAGER.

(I am so sorry, but I can't seem to stop falling down this particular rabbit hole, in fact I only seem to be falling faster the more I find out, sorry if this is very tedious for any other readers. This is just what happens when a band happens to hit about 20 autistic ~special interests~ all at once.)

So what is the deal with UV? The band went UFO-spotting in the Peruvian Andes, and decided to just go the full Hawkwind? This is genuinely *bonkers* - and I say that with a lot of affection, because I obviously do have a very high degree of tolerance for many kinds of esoteric nonsense from alchemy to Ophites and gnosticism to megalith-hunting, so I find it very charming. But I genuinely cannot tell if a song like "I Do" is them taking the piss out of themselves, or a genuine declaration of belief - or even both at the same time? (Their self-piss-taking is relentless, like I genuinely burst out laughing when Drug Star came on at the end.)

It genuinely feels like a (sympathetic) portrait of a moment - all of that millennial weirdness and woo, UFO-chasing and crystals and Kabbalah. I'm amused by how many of the references I "get". And listening to it, knowing what is just around the corner - like, culturally, it feels like on 1st January 2000 every single person who had formerly been into any kind of esoterica just collectively put down their druid robes and decided to join the Skeptic Movement, debunking anything that smelled like spirituality or religious imagery. (It's interesting, how early Colin Angus was super-super-anti-Christian in a proto-skeptic way - but it seems like he went completely the opposite direction into full-on Neoshamanism? Or did he? Is he dropping Castenada references in the full knowledge of how completely he was debunked and pwned?)

I kind of *want* to read "I Do" as a pisstake, because otherwise the level of appropriation and ick (that rasta accent? my dude, you are from Aberdeen!) is gross. Similar to Drug Star, like "if this is what you think I am, I will dial it up to 11 and play it to the hilt". But the level of knowledge displayed is very much - he's not taking the piss out of something he knows nothing about, this evinces far more than a casual interest in the subject matter.

But that is the kind of trickster imagery they always played with - you simply cannot tell what is joke and is real belief and what is a flight of "what if" imagination because he was really inspired in a creative way by things he saw and read about, and maybe it doesn't matter. I don't think that they were *stupid* - obviously someone doesn't go plugging DNA amino acid sequences into a music sequencer if they have no brains. But... was this for real or just play?

I am puzzled and intrigued.

I've also done some more research, and I'm actually starting to doubt that Oxygen Restriction is really about autoerotic asphyxiation at all, I think it's actually about Pranayama breath control techniques?

On the one hand, stupid tricky hippie making me think he's talking about something sexy and kinda kinky, when he's really just on about *yoga*. (Is there a sexy kind of yoga? I think maybe there is, but I know nothing about yoga.) OTOH, autoerotic asphyxiation is such an absolute hard nope from me, I'm quite relieved there is another potential meaning to that song.

I know it's ridiculous to look for double meanings in what are essentially incredibly silly pop songs, but the more I listen and investigate, so many double-references appear?

Like, I'm seriously trying to imagine their record company's response - after a year of begging "Come on, Col, please - can you stop mucking about botanising in South America long enough to give us another hit. You know, a nice boshing choon with some drug references to make it ~controversial~ enough to sell?"

And they go off and knock out Hempton Manor in 5 days, and the record company are like "Hemp? Is it about drugs again?" and they're like "ha ha ha, no, it's a concept album about all the different technological uses of the cannibis plant in the production of rope, canvas, textiles and paper, ha ha ha ha, drugs ha ha ha."

(I mean, I like this best, being an archaeologist when it comes to music, digging through long-lost fandoms, trying to put these fractured shards back together. But I do wish I'd paid more attention to this at the time, because it seems like it was very funny.)

I'm going to be completely gutted when I find out that Hyperreal isn't about Baudrillard at all, and it's not about climbing, ascending, rising to the ultimate level of the truly free-floating a-semiotic signifier with no relationship to reality at all, and no matter how intensively I do any kind of hermeneutics on the lyrics, they will never get back to truth at all.

This made me laugh, though...

I fell backwards into Baudrillard from Judith Butler: "There is no original or primary gender a drag imitates, but gender is a kind of imitation for which there is no original"

I still haven't worked out on what level "I Do" operates, if it's "This is what I am" or if it's a "this is what you say I am" simulacrum, but these lyrics...

Shamanise I do, fantasise I do
Creatise I do, ritualise I do
Harmonise I do, dowa-eyaya
Extasise I do, dowa-eyaya
Hyperrealise I do, dowa-eyaya
Womanise I do, dowa-eyaya

The tiny breath and a skipped beat he takes before he sings "womanise" introduces the element of irony, like a knowing wink. Is he just singing "womanise" as in yeah, like Mr C chatting up girls during the rave portion of the evening. Or is he singing ::wink:: "womanise" as in that *other* thing that... well, ANY FULE KNO that Shamans can fly - but what's that other really important thing that Shamans and trickster gods are often supposed to be able to do?

...

(He's definitely said he can fly, but has he mastered the shamanic trick of being able to change gender at will? that's what I want to know.)

I am definitely thinking too much about what really are very silly lyrics which should not be thought on so deeply.

I think the band made their feelings towards the label pretty clear when you read the first letter of each track title...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hempton_Manor

Ha ha ha omg they are such anarchic chias elves, I love them even more.

Would have loved to see the record company’s faces even more, too!

What is a chias elf, and I should not post while sleeping, must put something on my phone to stop that.

Botanising, apparently.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/db/34/08/db3408e72a30f790e83f3fb98353a2aa.jpg

Salvia Hispanica, no less!

https://academic.oup.com/bioinformatics/article/12/3/251/181889

Come on, how many techno artists publish scholarly articles on information technology applications of biochemistry. I sent this to my colleague and I think he's going to try to build one.

I noticed the same collaborator was behind the project to turn the coronavirus's gene sequencing into music:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-scientist-turned-the-coronavirus-into-musicheres-what-it-sounds-like-11593176569

Scientas off Boss Drum *IS* Rainbow Dome Musick by Steve Hillage and I claim my £5!

Got any Salmon Song? Sorted!

LOL, the joke was on me, it wasn't Colin pretending to be Steve Hillage on guitar, it was actually the *real* Steve Hillage...

I accept that at this point, this thread is basically me talking to myself, but why did no one tell me that Arbor Bona Arbor Mala was basically Pentamerous Metamorphosis, with a bit less shoegaze and a bit more Tangerine Dream synth wibble?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3GFpH-ky38

^^^seriously, who the fuck would hear something this sublime and beautiful and lush, and say "go back and write another Ebeneerzer Goode" - what the fuck planet were their record company even on. I need to find this on CD somehow, because it's missing the last 10 minutes and holy fuck, I need to know how this journey ends.

(Warning: around 23 minutes in, genuinely does contain several minutes of exquisitely good 'extractor fans echoing through the air conditioning ducts' drone concrete wub-wub-wub and I mean that in the best way possible.)

yeah, i love the extra ambient cd.
there was a time shops could not give the 2cd edition away, they were everywhere.
the packaging was mad as well - not a standard jewel case, but foldout cardboard excess.

Hey Mark - just sent you a webmail, not sure if it went through - but basically yes please? Cheers!

Arbor Bona Arbor Mala is pretty interesting, didn't know about that... reminds me of Spacetime Continuum a bit. Have to pick up a copy, looks like it can be had for $5-6.

I read somewhere that post-Shamen:

While Mr. C continued at the helm of his own techno label Plink Plonk, Angus delved into making even more esoteric music, generated through geometric formulas and even with the input of the human brain’s electronic impulses.

...and I would really dearly love to hear it, but apart from a couple of dribs and drabs of the Pablo Sandoz material that have turned up on YouTube, he seems to have disappeared. Sigh. I would have loved to have heard his ~geometrical formula music~ that sounds right up my alley.

That extra cd is great Branwell, if you don’t hear back from Mark I can try and send you files

I've got them, cheers! Diving in now, to see where they left me on their subterranean journey... oh my god the eBow just kicked in and I think I've reached the upper realm? (Is there an Upper Realm in Aztec mythology? I've forgotten my Popol Vuh, and anyway we keep switching back and forth between Aztec, Norse, Greek and Hebrew mythology... I'm kinda lost but I think that's the point!)

(Just checking the first track is actually called Asymptotic Eschaton, as in a curve that is nearing Infinity - not Asymptompatic, which, although more topical in 2020, doesn't really make sense in context?)

if you don’t hear back from Mark I can try and send you files

as if i aint going to help a fellow ilm'r in their hour of need !

I found this, from 2009, so about 10 years ago. Song is absolutely plodding VST plug-in crap, but it's definitely Colin singing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68cHwkelCfg

He sounds... ever so slightly frail? (in his bottom register, at least - his top register on the pretty harmony still sounds absolutely fine, which I would have thought was the opposite of how men's voices usually age. By counterpoint, Blixa, who is about the same age, his top range is completely gone but his bottom range has deepened and widened.) Colin's voice is still lovely, even if it doesn't have the same confident self assurance that he positively oozed in 1992. The lyrics just kinda make me want to give him a hug, TBH. (Though I'm not sure he wrote them.)

I do kind of respect people who absolutely just... *vanish* from the music industry like that. I have a lot more respect for him for *refusing* to reform, and actually I suppose it's better that he's not visibly online, propagating 2020 conspiracy woo, the way he was all starry-eyed about cute Terence McKenna eschatology back in the 90s.

Mr C also owned The End and while I don't know how hands on he was his influence on the next decade or so of club music was pretty substantial.

No, it's obvious that Mr C has stayed incredibly visible and busy, and was a total mainstay of London nightlife for decades. He's still on twitter, and pops up in Twitter nostalgia for The Shamen! (Eep.) But Colin just seemed to completely lose interest in making - or at least *releasing* music at all. Which I respect.

Digging through the rumours / substantiated announcements about the mooted reunion discussed, it's also pretty clear that Mr C was actually up for it, but Colin just point blank said, like "no - this is pure recidivism" and that was the actual word he used, which I thought was... interesting.

(Always prefered The KLF's bar to The Shamen's bar anyway ha ha haha oh god how much of my life did I waste there.)

I've flicked through some of the releases on plink plonk / the end a couple of times. Rough going unfortunately!

there are a few gems on plink plonk. this derrick carter one for instance - http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=129&v=q5Et2Zy4-Eo&feature=emb_title

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5Et2Zy4-Eo

I do kind of respect people who absolutely just... *vanish* from the music industry like that. I have a lot more respect for him for *refusing* to reform, and actually I suppose it's better that he's not visibly online, propagating 2020 conspiracy woo, the way he was all starry-eyed about cute Terence McKenna eschatology back in the 90s.

this to the power of xxxxx
as much as i would love them to reform for my own personal selfish reasons,
i hope that despite the fact that he was clearly unhappy re OLI and the treatment they received, he is living a comfortable life.

From a Mr C Instagram post last week:

I want to know if you’re still in contact with Colin and wtf is he up to?!

mrcsuperfreq: Not really & I don’t know 🤷‍♂️

From a Mr C Instagram post last week:

I want to know if you’re still in contact with Colin and wtf is he up to?!

mrcsuperfreq: Not really & I don’t know 🤷‍♂️

From a Mr C Instagram post last week :(

I want to know if you’re still in contact with Colin and wtf is he up to?!

mrcsuperfreq: Not really & I don’t know

From a Mr C Instagram post last week :(

I want to know if you’re still in contact with Colin and wtf is he up to?!

mrcsuperfreq: Not really & I don’t know

Well the “Colin is from Cults” article posted above in from 2014, and he seems quite well balanced, and happy and contented with his life? Just not very interested in doing music any more. (I did find another interview with a ‘00s era collaborator who said much the same thing - he’s fine, he just has no interest in engaging in music or creativity any more.) Which I completely respect! It’s fine to not want to make music any more.

(And apparently he made enough money off Ebeneezer Goode that he doesn’t need to work any more. Fair does, min!)

Kinda reminds me of Mark Hollis -- when he was done, he was fine with it.

Another recent-ish interview where he seems rather good-naturedly surprised that anyone remembers the band?

http://theshamen.tripod.com

Just seems like he’s moved on and does other stuff with his life. (Would still just generally like to give him a hug and posi-vibes, provided he didn’t headbutt me for overly creepy interest!)

Interesting choice of Popol Vuh album for him to Stan for, but like I ever need an excuse to go dig out some old Krautrock records...

...so I guess it makes sense, that I was looking for the most recent music that he did, and it sounds, well, no surprise, it sounds a bit like Popol Vuh:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU1KxSGdkBw

Wandering about the Heath, he just looks like such a nice man, like just a lovely hippie who loves trees and plants and things. Caught By The River were completely right - so many people who were involved in rave just ended up getting into nature, it does seem to be a thing.

His collaborator describes it thusly:

2005-06 ran a bootleg club called Legs and Co with a another producer called Idiotech, ran for a year in trendy shoreditch and had all sorts of guest players. It was about then that I got got a macbook (first of three), learned Ableton around then too which got me noticed by former Shaman Colin Angus, we did a few tracks under the guise of Pablo Sandoz. Two most notable were ‘pyramid’ and ‘the fleet’ he was a tough task master and never content with his compositions so finishing anything was a challenge, i still have about 10 more songs that could be finished but because his workflow involved laying down multiple parts, my laptop choked, add to that his reluctance to use a normal studio and the work remains unfinished, for now. considering STEMS as a means to reopen that can of worms but as he then withdrew from creativity, i respected his desire to cease and desist and we have lost touch.

(man, should have used Reason not Ableton, you could pile on about 64 tracks before it started to choke!)

Nice. The Fleet of course being the river that passes by / under there.

Of course we know nothing of The Fleet in the icen forests of ILX

Of course The Fleet was such a long-term ILX obsession, first dug up at the Great Free Jazz Picnic In The Sky, that I start to worry if maybe Colin Angus was an ILX0r?!?!

(Nah, I think it is just a general ~weird London~ staple, coz Coil also had their lost rivers phase, way before the Shimuras ever got there.)

My interest goes back a bit as well, this being the first record I appeared on ;-)

https://imgur.com/a/Lw9dXlW

This is very off topic but the recordist has had an interesting career in film - https://m.imdb.com/name/nm0789331/filmotype/sound_department?ref_=m_nmfm_1

Haha Noel what on earth is that? I’m on my phone so I can’t see the image clearly?

Not sure this is about the *river* Fleet, tho obvs the walk in the woods very much is along the source of The Fleet (and it’s weird listening to The Fleet whole day literally on the banks of the Effra right now:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z1gxdSq16RY

But the original doesn’t sound so much like Popol Vuh so much as it sounds like an obscure B-side by some forgotten parlour psych band with a name like ‘The Marmelade Tambourine Consortoum’ (and I am *so* here for that aesthetic!) He really does the voice for that sort of thing down pat, la la laaaa la la

whole day = while I’m sat (wtf, fone?)

Help me, I am becoming steadily more and more obsessed with these wee Scottish rave hippies!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkc_IShYHzE

^^^warning, contains rather an excessive amount of Terence McKenna

Not nearly enough Will, tho. Here is some bonus Will content for your delectation (he actually comes across as far more intelligent than Terence McKenna TBH)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SI5zwitQps