Rumble of The Ruins : philip sanderson

Showing posts with label philip sanderson. Show all posts

Philip Sanderson - Rumble of The Ruins

Side A

1 Rumble of The Ruins 02:23

2 Window Sill 02:18

3 The Elephant's Eye 03:00

4 Raven Row (You Know How it Goes) 03:06

5 Funicular Freedom 04:11

Side B

6 Au Coin Du Jardin 4.34

7 Funny Money 03:35

8 If You Take a Table 02:31

9 The Golden Fleet 04:12

10 Broken Morning 06:58

All tracks by Philip Sanderson

Credits:

Format: Cassette, 25 numbered copies

Release Date: 2020

Label: Snatch Tapes

Catalogue Number: tch 219

Design: Layout/ paintings by Philip Sanderson

Reviews:

Review by Ed Pinsent from the Sound Projector 27/07/2020

Last heard from Philip Sanderson with his very good LP On One Of These Bends, lovingly presented as a vinyl edition in an expensive jacket by Séance Centre of Canada. Today’s Sanderson item is Rumble Of The Ruins (SNATCH TAPES TCH 2020), a Bandcamp-only thing with a cover featuring a painting by the man himself – he seems to be making a venture in exploring the history of 20th-century European fine art on his own terms, turning in a mysterious tableau that contains faint traces of Paul Klee, Léger, and de Chirico.

Musically, Sanderson is getting back to what he does so well – songs and electronica, a form of synthop with drum machines and treated vocals, produced in a very eccentric DIY post-punk manner. This is quite different to the lush, soundtrack-y productions we heard on On One Of These Bends, and there’s a lot to be said for the immediacy of these concise and assured ditties, most of them clocking in at traditional pop-song length of three minutes. Sanderson may make it seem easy, almost throwaway at times, but I suspect there is a lot of craft underlying these songs, both in terms of composition, lyrical content, and sheer effort spent programming and overdubbing (or however he created it). Each song sounds both jaunty and slightly unsettling in equal measure; I’m not sure what is causing this impression, but while the rhythms are upbeat and foot-tappingly catchy, the melodies keep veering towards a darkened minor key, and the song delivery has a strange urgency to it.

That’s not to mention the lyrics, which today strike me as fairly bonkers (in a good way) – like an update on the king of balmy, red wine-soaked laissez-faire, Kevin Ayers. If I explored this pathway any further, we might end up making a case for situating Philip Sanderson in a line with other 1970s English songwriting eccentrics, such as Robert Wyatt, Eno, Pete Sinfield and Peter Hammill. I mention this as I think it’s a dimension of Sanderson’s considerable skillset which isn’t spotlighted too often, as he’s more often pegged as a cassette band / post-punk / noise artist. Personally, I also prefer his song-based work to the all-instrumental music of records like Seal Pool Sounds (2005). From 15th January 2020.

www.thesoundprojector.com/2020/07/27/fragments-shored-against-my-ruins/

Review by Neil Kulkarni The Wire September 2020

How odd l was listening to Hood's Cold House the other day and it's amazing how close Rumble Of The Ruins by Storm Bugs' Philip Sanderson shears to that period of post-rock where underground rock fans admitted they loved both Justin Timberlake and Disco Inferno. There's a similar fondness for startlingly poppy textures, a similar pleasure in the detournement of those sounds for determinedly art rock ends.

Sanderson's voice- check out the Canterbury via Medway psychness of "Window Sill" - now has a wonderfully unmannered, conversational feel, and the same talents in collage and subtle derailment of sources that he's made so evident in his Storm Bugs work are still present. It's the decision making within that process that's key, and Sanderson knows what to treat and what to leave untouched. So the poppiest choruses get deliberately amplified until they get glassy eyed and unsettling, the strange sonic detritus that populates these songs always executed and jettisoned before anything can detract from the melodic strength. "The Elephants Eye" and “Raven Row (You Know How It Goes)" deliver a flavour of what Kevin Ayers might cook up if he were alive and forced to work with the Residents.

<a href="https://snatchtapes.bandcamp.com/album/rumble-of-the-ruins-2020">Rumble Of The Ruins (2020) by Philip Sanderson</a>

Various Artists: Close To The Noise Floor: Formative UK Electronica 1975-1984

DISC ONE:

1. FIVE TIMES OF DUST – Computer Bank

2. THE KLINGONS – R.A.M.

3. CHRIS AND COSEY – Re-Education Through Labour

4. MALCOLM BROWN – Sedation Strokes

5. STORM BUGS – Little Bob Minor

6. THOMAS LEER – Tight As A Drum

7. BLANCMANGE – Holiday Camp

8. INNER CITY STATIC – Fractured Smile

9. WE BE ECHO – Sexuality

10.BOURBONESE QUALK – God With Us

11.NAGAMATZU Faith

12.O YUKI CONJUGATE – Disco Song

13.BRITISH ELECTRIC FOUNDATION – Optimum Chant

14.KEVIN HARRISON – All Night Long

15.VOICE OF AUTHORITY – Stopping And Starting

DISC TWO:

1. COLIN POTTER – I Am Your Shadow

2. BRITISH STANDARD UNIT – D’Ya Think I’m Sexy?

3. FIVE TIMES OF DUST – The Single Off The Album

4. SPÖÖN FAZER – Back To The Beginning

5. GERRY AND THE HOLOGRAMS – Gerry And The Holograms

6. THE PASSAGE – Drugface

7. JOHN FOXX – A New Kind Of Man

8. 100% MANMADE FIBRE – Green For Go

9. THOSE LITTLE ALIENS – Sentimental

10.FINAL PROGRAM – Protect And Survive

11.THE HUMAN LEAGUE – Being Boiled

12.INSTANT AUTOMATONS – New Muzak

13.CULTURAL AMNESIA – Materialistic Man

14.WORLDBACKWARDS – (Leaving Me) Now

15.ALAN BURNHAM – Music To Save The World By

16.ORCHESTRAL MANOEUVRES IN THE DARK – Almost

17.EYELESS IN GAZA – Kodak Ghosts Run Amok

18.SCHLEIMER K – Broken Vein

19.NATIVE EUROPE – The Distance From Köln

DISC THREE:

1. ZORCH – Adrenalin (Return of the Elohim Pt 1)

2. SEA OF WIRES – Robot Dance

3. RON BERRY – Sea Of Tranquility

4. MFH – Mistral

5. ADRIAN SMITH – Joe Goes To New York

6. MARK SHREEVE – Embryo (Extract)

7. EG OBLIQUE GRAPH – Triptych

8. CARL MATTHEWS – Encounter

9. PAUL NAGLE – Ynys Scaith

10.O YUKI CONJUGATE – Sedation

11.KONSTRUKTIVIST – Western Vein

12.ATTRITION – Dead Of Night (Excerpt)

DISC FOUR:

1. THROBBING GRISTLE – What A Day

2. A TENT – No Way Of Knowing

3. PORTION CONTROL – Go For The Throat

4. DC3 – Eco Beat

5. RENALDO AND THE LOAF – Dying Inside

6. BLAH BLAH BLAH – In The Army

7. LEGENDARY PINK DOTS – God Speed

8. MUSLIMGAUZE – Muslin Gauze Muslim Prayer

9. SUISSE – Live At Longborne

10.ALIEN BRAINS – Menial Disorders, Extract B2

11.STORM BUGS – Himeal (And She Blew)

12.THIRD DOOR FROM THE LEFT – In The Room

13.AL ROBERTSON – Dignity Of Labour

14.bcGilbert, gLewis, russell Mills – Mzui (Extract)

Credits:

Format: 4 X CD plus booklet . Also issued as double LP.

Release Date: 2016

Label: Cherry Red

Catalogue Number: CRCDBOX24

Notes:

A 4CD, 60-track set exploring the origins of electronica in the UK with a 48pp booklet with artists' sleeve notes and an essay by Dave Henderson. From the Cherry Red Press Release: "Featuring tracks from key figures from the cassette label underground alongside early releases by future stars of the movement." Alonside the likes of the Human League you get two Storm Bugs tracks as well as Alien Brains, Cultural Amnesia, and Sea of Wires all of whom appeared on early Snatch Tapes compilations. An edited double LP version was also released containing one Storm Bugs track.

MESSTHETICS GREATEST HISS: the DIY cassette-scene vol.1

1. Jelly Babies - 'Soylent Green'

2. 391 - 'Jet Plane'

3. Instant Automatons - 'Gillian is Normal'

4. Event Group - 'Concussion Edit'

5. Missing Persons - 'Sign of The Times'

6. Danny & The Dressmakers - 'Eggs on Legs'

7. Gravity Craze - 'Song For M'

8. Farming Jim - 'Cats in The Kitchen'

9. Chromosomes - 'Hi Fi Know How'

10. Mike Jones - 'Reckless Policies'

11. Living Dead No.5 - 'Never Give In'

12. Storm Bugs - 'Car Situations (Nasal Passage)'

13. Colin Potter - 'Power'

14. Digital Dinosaurs - 'Baby Snakes'

15. Twizlers - 'We are The Twizlers'

16. Casual Labourers - 'A Lapse is Due'

17. Midnight Circus - 'Suburbia Nervosa'

18. Aconite - 'The Truth about Cable'

19. Milkshake Melon - 'Walk Oates Walk!'

20. Cultural Amnesia - 'Repetition for This World'

21. The Get - 'The Leaders'

22. Stripey Zebras - 'Walking Home'

23. Funhouse - 'Teenage Bedrooms'

24. Danny & The Dressmakers - 'Kif Kif's Magic Hat'

25. Chimp Eats Bananas - 'Shopping List'

Bonus MP3's

Chromosomes - 'Rot all Rulers'

Dean Johnson - 'Another Letter'

Digital Dinosaurs - 'Elephant Germs'

Farming Jim - 'New Years Eve'

Jelly Babies - 'Candy Bricks'

Credits:

Format: CD. 500 copies

Release Date: 2008

Label: Hyped to Death

Catalogue Number: Messthetics 10

Notes:

Includes a 24-page booklet with histories, photos, artifacts and an essay from Mick Sinclair, who wrote the original Cassette Pets column for Sounds.

The Storm Bugs track is 'Car Situations (Nasal Passage)' from the A Safe Substitute Cassette.

Storm Bugs - Metamorphose (Tin/Car Situations)

Side A

Tin

Side B

Car Situations

Both tracks by Philip Sanderson and Steven Ball. Philip Sanderson: loops, vocals, treatments. Steven Ball: guitar, bass, lead vocals.

Credits:

Format,: 7 inch single, 1,470 copies

Release Date: 1981

Label: L'invitation au Suicide

Catalogue Number: L'invitation 0100

Sleeve and label Design: Yann Farcy

Notes:

Whereas the first Storm Bugs single was recorded by Sanderson on a two-track Revox tape machine the second Storm Bugs single was a collaborative affair between Sanderson and Ball using a multitrack recorder. Sanderson first created a drum loop from a bongo using various tape collage techniques. Over this he developed a rough guitar part and the vocal line. Ball honed the guitar part into a more formal chord sequence and wrote a bass part. The two then recorded and mixed the song on an 8-track multitrack tape machine in an afternoon. The music for side B was built up from layers of tape loops made by Sanderson on top of which the vocal line was added by Ball. The lyrics to Car Situations had been written by Sanderson and Ball in Paddington using cut-up phrases from sources such as John Cage's book Silence. The release was the first on the French L'invitation au Suicide label. The single came in a 10-inch sleeve entitled Metamorphose. The design differed considerably from that which the band had agreed with the label and was disowned by them.

Various - Telephone Music

Side A

1 Maps (Philip Sanderson)

2 Thief (Philip Sanderson/Michael Denton)

3 Merry Christmas Adolf (Michael Denton)

4 Drinks and Aeroplanes (Philip Sanderson)

Side B

1 Ups and Downs (Philip Sanderson/Michael Denton)

2 Apostrophe S (Philip Sanderson/Steven Ball/David Jackman)

3 Spy Garden (Philip Sanderson)

4 Mr. Sound (Michael Denton)

Credits

Format: Cassette, 5 copies.

Release Date: 1986

Label: Telephone Music

Catalogue Number: tel 001

Sleeve Design: Michael Denton & Philip Sanderson. Photo by Michael Denton

Compiled and produced by: Philip Sanderson

Notes:

The tape compiled collaborative and solo tracks by PhilipSanderson & Michael Denton from bertween 1981 and 1986, plus the track 'Apostrophe S' by Philip Sanderson & Steven Ball (with flute by David Jackman). The tape came in two sleeves, a white 7-inch single sleeve (sealed using brown parcel tape) with a grey photocopied label on the front and back and a design with the camouflage plyers. 'Maps', 'Drinks and Aeroplanes', and 'Spy Garden' (retitled as 'Tale Chase') were re-issued in 2018 on the LP On One of These Bends.

Storm Bugs - Table Matters

Side 1

Cash Wash

Eat Good Beans

Make Customers Matter

Side 2

Window Shopping

Our Main Objective

All tracks by Philip Sanderson.

Credits:

Format: 7-inch EP. 500 copies.

Release Date: 1980

Label: Loop records

Catalogue Number:

Sleeve Design & Photography: Steven Ball

Notes:

The Storm Bugs 7-inch EP on black vinyl in a printed cover with white labels featuring a small sticker. The cut up sleeve shows photographs taken in and around Charring Cross Rd circa 1979. The image of the mannequins in the top left and right corner was used for the labels of Up the Middle Down the Sides. The image at the top of the page is of the printed sleeve but there were two other alternate photocopied sleeve designs. The records were pressed a couple of months before the printed sleeves were ready thus the first 50 copies (or so) came with a folded screen printed insert. One or two copies were also sold with one-off collages by Sanderson. The remaining 450 copies have the printed sleeve.

Snatch 3

Side 1

Steven Ball - 60/60

Mental - Sound 2

Ice Yacht - 0 North

Nigel Jacklin - Song

Philip Sanderson - Under Press of Sail

David Jackman - World

Side 2

Claire Thomas - Ashes & Diamonds

Steven Ball - Dressing for the Party

David Jackman - Blues

Alien Brains & Instruments

Orior - Call

Michael Denton - Part 3

Credits:

Format: Cassette, 100 copies (approx)

Release Date: 1981

Label: Snatch Tapes

Catalogue Number: TCH 300

Sleeve Design: Philip Sanderson & David Jackman. Printed sleeve and white inlay card, screen printed turquoise and pink cassette labels,

Notes:

The third and last Snatch Tapes complation. The tracks 'O North' and 'Ashes and Diamonds', here credited to Ice Yacht and Claire Thomas respectively, were later to appear on the Sanderson/Jackman O North tape (AR4). 'Ashes & Diamonds' was mixed by Sanderson using a flute loop made with David Jackman, snippets of vocals by Nancy Slessinger (who sang on 'Bright Waves') all fed through a Revox tape delay. '0 North' is a mix of the drum loop from the Storm Bugs single 'Tin' with Esraj by David Jackman (a slowed down version of the 'Blues' track also found on the tape. Orior were an ambient electronic duo comprising 'Clip' and Phil Hollins who released one single on the Crystal Groove label, and recorded an LP which was not released until 2016 as Strange Beauty. Nigel Jacklin released a number of tapes under the Alien Brains title many of whcih were subsequently re-issued by Vinly on Demand as as a boxset. To accompany Snatch 3 there was a screenprinted A0 poster by Philip Sandersom & Michael Denton. The Orior, David Jackman ('Blues'), and Nigel Jacklin tracks were re-issued on the Snatch Paste LP in 2006. Also included on the LP was an alternative version of the 'Ashes & Diamonds' track called 'Diamonds & Ashes'.

Snatch 2

Side 1

Orchestral Introduction

Beach Surgeons: Graham Massey & Friends

Mannequin Moves: John Arnold, Brian McCarthy

Vote Police: Sarah Pomeroy, Vivienne DeVoy

Orchestral Interlude

Mountain Stream

Sea of Wires: 2 Teas & A Funny Hat

Side 2

David Jackman

Scratch Dub: Beach Surgeons, John Cage, Scratch Orchestra with rhythm & loops by David Jackman, Philip Sanderson and Storm Bugs

Lemon Kittens: Danielle Dax, Karl Blake

Storm Bugs: Philip Sanderson, Sarah Pomeroy, Steve Ball

David Jackman

Cultural Amnesia Dub: G. Greenway, B. Norland

Garden Dwarves Dub

Credits:

Format: Cassette, 100 copies

Release Date: 1980

Label: Snatch Tapes

Catalogue Number: None

Sleeve Design: Photocopy onto white paper, design by Philip Sanderson & David Jackman, Alternate cover with floorplan design by Philip Sanderson (only one or two copies exist of the alternate cover)

Notes:

Sanderson had already started work on Snatch 2 when he met David Jackman in spring 1980. Jackman was drafted in to help with the compilation of the tape, with the two creating the loops and assembling the tape in Sanderson's basement flat in Paddington.

As with Snatch 1 the tape cover lists the names of the artists but not the track titles, further details were included on a small booklet sent out with the tape. Here are some further notes.

Side 1

Orchestral Introduction

A short tape loop made by Sanderson & Jackman

Beach Surgeons: Graham Massey & Friends

The Beach Surgeons was one of the many bands that Massey formed including: 808 State, Biting Tongues, and Danny And The Dressmakers. No know track title, not known either who the 'friends' are.

Mannequin Moves: John Arnold, Brian McCarthy

The track is called 'Think Of The Girls You Left Behind was also featured on the compilation Healthy Feet/Murky Depths (1981). The track was re-issued on the Snatch Paste (2006) LP on Vinyl on Demand as 'The Girls You Left Behind':

Vote Police: Sarah Pomeroy, Vivienne DeVoy

Vote Police was a Sanderson 'band'. A tape by Vote Police was released in 1978/79 (around 10 copies). One copy was sent to Indutstrial Records and was included in a list of "tapes received" in Industrial News. No copies of the tape are known to exist. Sarah Pomeroy was briefly a member of Storm Bugs and plays guitar on this track (via a VCS3) the synths and loops etc, are by Sanderson. The track is a mix/version of the Storm Bugs track 'Objective' which was later to feature on A Safe Substitute (1981), re-issued in 2011 on vinyl by Harbinger. Vivienne DeVoy is a Sanderson pseudonym.

Orchestral Interlude

A short tape loop made by Sanderson & Jackman

Mountain Stream

A short tape loop made by Sanderson & Jackman

Sea of Wires: 2 Teas & A Funny Hat

This track is called 'Endless Rainy Day', from the cassette Individually Screened (1981). The track was re-issued as part of The Sea Of Wires / Chris Jones (12) _- Recordings 1980-82 (2014) on Vinly on Demand.

Side 2

David Jackman

Jackman went on to release much highly regraded material as Organum. This track is called 'Untitled' and ia different mix was to appear on the Cherry Red compilation LP Perspectives And Distortion (1981).

Scratch Dub: Beach Surgeons, John Cage, Scratch Orchestra with rhythm & loops by David Jackman, Philip Sanderson and Storm Bugs

A VCS3 percussive sequence by Sanderson, on top of which was mixed snatches: of Cage (unknown piece), Scratch Orchestra (previously unreleased) and a vocal by Graham Massey, taken from the same Beach Surgeons tape as the previous track.

Lemon Kittens: Danielle Dax, Karl Blake

The track is untitled and was not otherwise issued.

Storm Bugs: Philip Sanderson, Sarah Pomeroy, Steve Ball

The track is called 'Thin Line Flash of Traffic' and is spoken and played by Sanderson, subsequently re-issued on the Storm Bugs LP Up The Middle Down The Sides (2005) on Fusetron.

David Jackman

The track is called 'Pulses', not otherwise released.

Cultural Amnesia Dub: G. Greenway, B. Norland

Notes: the track is a looped/tape delay re-working by Sanderson of an original Cultural Amnesia number called 'Cyberforms', which appears on Video Rideo (1981). The band refer to this version as 'Cyberforms Dub'.

Garden Dwarves Dub

Garden Dwarves were a creation of Leif Thuresson who also appears on the compliation Standard Response (1979).

Storm Bugs - Slice of Live

Intro/Portapak/Pity the Small/Dull Sound of Breath/Window Shopping

The first 15 minutes of the Storm Bugs performance recorded live at Limehouse Town Hall on Saturday 7th July 2012.

Philip Sanderson/Steven Ball: loops, samples, electronics, vocals

Credits:

Format: Digital/Bandcamp

Release Date: 2013

Label: Snatch Tapes

Catalogue Number: none

Sleeve Design: Philip Sanderson & Steven Ball

Philip Sanderson - Reprint

Track Listing:

Bright waves

Reprint 1

Nein Nein Nein

Reprint 2

Under Press of Sail

All tracks by Philip Sanderson, except 'Nein NeinNein' by Philip Sanderson & Steven Ball. 'Bright Waves' by Philip Sanderson & Nancy Slessinger.

Credits

Format: CD, 500 copies

Release Date: 2003

Label: Anomalous

Catalogue Number: NOM 23

Sleeve Design: Philip Sanderson

Notes:

Re-issue of the 1980 cassette originally credited to Claire Thomas & Susan Vezey.

Reviews:

From: the Wire Magazine by Jim Haynes:

"...what may have been consigned to the dustbin of 1980's cassette culture turns out to be a marvellous find, as good as any of the recently recovered cassettes of recordings of Cabaret Voltaire or Throbbing Gristle."

From: WFMU a review by Program Director Brian Turner:

"Reprint was originally a cassette under Claire & Susan's moniker, and regardless of what name is on it today it stands as a great marker on the home-brewed experimental/electronic timeline. Glad to see Anomalous brought this back to the surface."

<a href="https://snatchtapes.bandcamp.com/album/reprint-1980-2003">Reprint (1980/2003) by Philip Sanderson</a>

Philip Sanderson - On One of These Bends

Side A

A1. Bright Waves

A2. Tale Chase

A3. E for Echo

A4. Viewfinder

A5. Everything He is Not

A6. On One of These Bends

Side B

B1. This is Not a Game

B2. Mixing Drinks & Aeroplanes

B3. Scene of the Crash

B4. Echo Complex

B5. Watertight

B6. Maps

B7. Looking Back

All music and lyrics by Philip Sanderson except: Bright Waves (Sleesenger/Sanderson/Tallis), Viewfinder (Sanderson, Denton), This is Not a Game (Sanderson, Ball). Philip Sanderson plays: VCS3, vibraphone, DX7, Roland SH-101, Roland TR-606, Revox tape delay, acoustic guitar, Yamaha FB-01. With: Bright Waves - vocals Nancy Slessenger. E for Echo - voice over Patricia Hosking. Viewfinder - guitar Michael Denton. This is Not a Game - keyboards Steven Ball, voice over Patricia Hosking & Tony Raven. Mixing Drinks & Aeroplanes - vocals Naomi, fretless bass Steve Rose, vibraphone Michael Denton. Maps - vocals Naomi.

Credits:

Format: LP, 500 copies

Release Date: 2018

Label: SÈance Centre

Catalogue Number:1SC

Sleeve Design: Alan Brian. Rear sleeve photograph by Philip Sanderson. Front images from various films by Philip Sanderson, and Philip Sanderson & Steven Ball.

Remastered from the original reels by Brandon Hocura

Notes:

From the back sleeve: On One Of These Bends is a collection of unreleased songs, soundtrack work and obscure cassette-only pieces from the 1980s which reflect a shift in focus towards film and moving image. It was a departure from the more industrial music Philip Sanderson had been making with his group Storm Bugs, having more in common with Nino Rota and Henry Mancini, albeit as seen through a DIY lens, and with a reel-to-reel orchestra comprised of an EMS VCS3, vibraphone, DX7, Roland SH-101, Roland TR-606, tape delay, acoustic guitar, fretless bass and Yamaha FB-01. On two numbers, Philip jokingly asked an American chanteuse to "sing it like a cross between Streisand and The Shangri-Las", and to his surprise she did. Counterpointing this are tracks such as E For Echo made with just an acoustic guitar, and the very first piece Bright Waves which combines the choral vocal talents of Nancy Slessenger with a Revox tape delay system, originally released on Snatch Tapes under the pseudonymous Claire Thomas & Susan Vezey.

These tracks are presented with the "picture turned down" so to speak, and as such the music acts as a kind of memento mori for the absent moving images, and maybe even for the decade itself. Remastered from the original reels, DMM pressing.

<a href="https://philipsanderson.bandcamp.com/album/on-one-of-these-bends">On One of These Bends by Philip Sanderson</a>

Philip Sanderson - Seal Pool Sounds

Oil on Troubled Daughters

Feeding Time

Big Glass

Umwell

Flume

Sea Swell

Seal Pool Sounds

Pilot Light

March of the Bugs

Radium Lab

Nude Nights

Left then Down

Lude

All tracks by Philip Sanderson

Credits:

Format: CD. 500 copies

Release Date: 2005

Label: Seal Pool

Catalogue Number: Spool 02

Sleeve Design: Philip Sanderson and John Podeszwa, all CD booklet photographs taken in Japan by John Podeszwa except the photograph on the back of CD whcih is a found image of an original 1930s Seal Pool

Notes:

There is also a limited edition box set version of the Seal Pool CD in an edition of 25 copies. As well as the main CD, it includes an additional CD-R with two long drone tracks. All the boxes are hand made in Japan by John Podeszwa and feature various found photographs and ephemera. More information here.

Reviews:

From Mimaroglu

The return of philip sanderson... I’m an unabashed mega-fan of the storm bugs as well as philip’s various projects over the years (remember the claire thomas & susan vesey track on the cherry red comp “perspectives and distortions?” i do...) so it’s great to listen to this mish-mash of different approaches to electronic music, all constructed with various synthesizers (software, hardware, and otherwise...) over the last few years.

The blurb is fairly spot on... there’s a bit of raymond scott’s “soothing sounds for babies” sound-world, inasfar as there are child-like melodies mixed with more abstract sounds & processing... on top of that there’s a bit of a-grade electro-acoustic collagery, all kinds of crazy location recordings of animals (echoing basil kirchin’s zonked “worlds within worlds” series)... all dripping with a certain nod towards surrealism & a woozy diy home-recorded aesthetic that made sanderson’s early 80s music so... unique (check the recent “reprint” disc on anomalous for a taste.)

Some of the tones are occasionally off-putting (the intital 20 seconds had me checking the cd player to make sure i hadn’t put the wrong disc in!) but the unorthodox sound assembly/construction methods of the disc taken as a whole leave no doubt in my mind that the same brain that conjured up the snatch tapes universe 25 years back is still coursing, full of great ideas and the means to realize them... an excellent disc.

From Aquarius Records

It's been a very, very long time that Philip Sanderson has released anything new. Up until Seal Pool Sounds, the last recordings for Sanderson date back to 1982! During the late '70s and early '80s, Sanderson had been very active in the Britian's DIY cassette culture, producing music as the Storm Bugs (with Steven Ball) and as Susan Thomas & Clare Vesay (whose fictional femininity caused a minor bout of controversy between Sanderson and Cherry Red records). He also collaborated frequently with David Jackman who at that time had yet to form his seminal drone-scrape project Organum. Many of these recordings emerged on Sanderson's own Snatch Tapes; and some of those original cassettes have slowly been reissued in recent years. In the mid-'80s, Sanderson made a stylistic jump to film and installation, offering an explanation as to his whereabouts during all those years.

Within the murk, hiss, and Frankensteinian electric constructions of his early work on Snatch, there was a peculiar and perverse sense of humor in Sanderson's work. On Seal Pool Sounds, he allows the playful aspects of that sense of humor to occasionally emerge with these much cleaner squiggles, jolts, and drones of electronic sounds. Alternately, a plaintive melancholia hangs upon other abstracted tones and broken rhythms, ending up sounding like more primitive constructions from Mika Vainio's solo work, those Microstoria albums, and even Manhatten Research era Raymond Scott.

Review by Ed Pinsent from the Sound Projector magazine 14th issue.

Great record by Sanderson, themed around a concept of marine life found at the zoo. Might be worth comparing this with Merzbow's 24 Hours: A Day Of Seals box set, although Merzbow's take on similar subject is much wilder and untamed, suggesting the sheer terror of extreme nature in the raw. Sanderson locates his work in a more domesticated setting. as suggested by the photographs taken from a seal pool in Osaka, and his record has an overall 'friendlier' sound. Think of The digital-era Residents, or those fine MoebiuslPlank LPs on the Sky label from I 98 1- I 982.

Seal Pool Sounds is a brilliant collection of assured, skewed and sometimes rather queasy electronic abstract paintings. The opening track 'Oil on Troubled Daughters' is closest to being a portrait of the seals themselves; certainly it's very suggestive of those agile, slipppery black bodies turning about under the surface of the water. Lovers of pop melody are advised to click on to 'Feeding Time', a slice of jaunty analogue synth melody that owes much to Delia Derbyshire and The Residents, and its jollity will have you clapping your flippers in appreciation. 'Big Glass' features a midi piano, while 'Umwell' contains sound effects, distorted voices and backwards tapes. Although some of the later tracks are a bit silly - eg 'Nude Nights' and the dribbly nonsense of 'Radium Lab', overall this is very creditable. It could almost be used as a TV soundtrack record, if anyone working in television these days had any imagination left ...

Philip Sanderson has collaborated with Organum and is best known for his work in Storm Bugs, a 1980s cassette band whose work is sporadically being retrieved in assorted reissue programmes; you all recall the Reprint CD issued by Anomalous Records. His music is perhaps no longer as edgy as that early work, but he's still full of ideas, and for this record at least he wishes to evince an interest in Raymond Scott, Marcel Duchamp and French New Wave film music. Try a dip .. it's cool in the pool.

Storm Bugs - A Safe Substitute

Side 1

Mesh of Wire

Objective

Car Situations

Side 2

Hodge

Solely From

Blackheath Episode

Credits:

Format: Cassette, 80 copies

Release Date: 1980

Label: Snatch Tapes

Catalogue Number: TCH110

Sleeve Design: Steven Ball. Photocopy onto red card. The image on the cover is from the Storm Bugs Super 8 film Table Matters

Notes

Re-issued on red vinyl in 2011 by Harbinger records. Side 1 of the tape is a long collaged piece, mixed by Philip Sanderson in one take with several Revox reel to reel and VCS3's running simultaneously and much on the fly remixing, filtering and application of treatments. Side 2 features three VCS3 sequencer tracks by Sanderson. The following notes were added to the 2011 LP re-issue.

Side One

Mesh of Wire