The Crow Versus Crow Radio Show #119

The 119th episode of The Crow Versus Crow Radio Show, recorded at Crow Versus Crow Haus using a Zoom H1 recorder as a microphone and stitched together using outdated software. Please listen to this on headphones.

#119 picks from the previous episode's exploration of Paul Bowles' 'Music of Morocco' box-set before winding itself around the spools of a selection of recent tape-orientated cassette releases from the Falt label; sinks into a heady mire of grimy ecstasies, from Blood Stereo to Klein, via Scottish work songs and golden choral loopings; before Grey Guides hold up a gunked mirror to post-Brexit, undustrial Britain with an exclusive (killer!) mix of sounds from the scraggy edges of post-punk, industrial and weirdo noise.

If you are at all interested in the work of the artists featured in this episode, please support the artists and labels through purchasing their records and attending their shows where possible.

1. Chikh Hamed Bel Hadj Hamadi Ben Allal And Ensemble – Reh Dial Beni Bouhiya (Qsbah Solo) (Music of Morocco, from The Library of Congress / Dust to Digital, 2016)
2. Artem Spar – Side B (KW 13-15 / Falt, 2017)

3. Rose Buried in Sand – Dissolving Tape (Dissolving Tape / Falt, 2017)

4. The South Harris Waulking Group – Tha Fadachd Arm Fhin A Ri (Oran Luaidh – Gaelic Waulking Songs / Lewis Recordings, unknown)
5. Stuart Chalmers – Untitled (Loop Phantasy No.4 / Chocolate Monk, 2017)
6. Klein – Tommy (Tommy / Hyperdub, 2017)
7. Blood Stereo – Dirt Hymn (Spools & Frolics / Chocolate Monk, 2017)
8. Sophie Cooper – Side A (excerpt) (The Curfew Tower Recordings / Crow Versus Crow, 2017)
9. Grey Guides – Pissed On, Spat On and Shat On In Preston (We Are Not Your New Techno Messiahs / Not on Label, 2017)
10. Grey Guides’ Mix for The Crow Versus Crow Radio Show

1. Alternative TV – 'The Radio Story' (Vibing Up The Senile Man / Deptford Fun City Records 1979)
2. Storm Bugs – 'Car Situations' (A Safe Substitute / Snatch Tapes 1980 & Harbinger Sound, 2011)
3. Smell And Quim – 'The Gospel Accordian To James Anderton' (The English Method / Stinky Horse Fuck SHFK7001 1988)
4. Hair Police – 'Boneless' (Obedience Cuts / Freedom From, 2004)
5. Pulp Music – 'Low Flying Aircraft' ( 7 inch single / not on label, 1979)
6. The Poetics – 'Jim's Song' (Remixes Of Recordings 1977 – 1983 / Compound Annex Records, 1996)
7. Smegma – 'Mr Potatohead's Floatation Exercises' (Pigs For Lepers / Pigface Records 1982 & Harbinger Sound, 2006)
8. Slugfuckers – 'Deaf Disco' (Cacophony 1979 – 1981 / Harbinger Sound, 2006)
9. Sacher-Pelz – 'Cainus' (Cainus / Marquis Tapes, 1979)
10. Chrome – 'I Am The Jaw' (Read Only Memory / Siren Records, 1979 & Cleopatra, 2014)
11. Smell And Quim - 'Man With Spirit' (The English Method / Stinky Horse Fuck 1988)
12. Blood Stereo – 'Moth Eaten Gurgle' (All Are Ore Museum / Chocolate Monk, 2009)
13. James Ferraro – 'Buffy Honkerburg's Answering Machine' (Night Dolls With Hairspray / Olde English Spelling Bee, 2010)
14. Lovely Honkey – 'Putton Bush Work Patch Shreddie' (Completely Wastes Your Time / Chocolate Monk, 2016)
15. Control Unit - 'Lemmania' (In A Frame / Alt.Vinyl, 2013)
16. Smell And Quim – 'Spirit Log Supplemental' (The English Method / Stinky Horse Fuck, 1988)
17. Uns – 'Says' (One Foot In The Grave 1968 – 1990 / Touch Records, 1991)
18. Rodd, Terri and the MSR Singers – 'The Beat Of The Traps' (Beat Of The Traps: MSR Madness vol 1 / Carnage Press, 1992)
19. Unknown – Answering machine invocation. 
20. Posset – 'Argos Jam' (Suranne, Suranne / We're Gonna Get Fucking Drunk Tonight Boys, 2013)
21. This Heat – 'Hi Baku Shyo' (Deceit / Rough Trade, 1981)
22. The Shadow Ring – 'Tuna In Brine' (Patchouli And Echoes / 777 was 666 & Chocolate Monk, 2004)
23. The Cramps – Surfin' Dead (Smell Of Female / Enigma Records, 1983)

Thank You

Grey Guides' 'Beast Mask Supremacist' Reviews

As starts of new years go, two reviews of Grey Guides' Beast Mask Supremacist cassette arriving within a couple of days of each other a mere seven days in, this one is alright with me...

First up, Cassette Gods:

'...the manipulation and experimentation of tracks like “One Eye Lower than the Other” and “Just Burned Down a Care Home,” where sounds are warped and layered to unsettling effect, are the stars of the awesomely titled Beast Mask Supremacist. What are these sources, and how are the deployed? No idea. That’s part of the fun.'

Thank you Cassette Gods! Read the full review here.

And another from ATTN:magazine:

'I picture this: a gigantic, industry-grade cassette player spewing chunks of tape at random intervals. It bunches up in the spokes and stops the mechanism from turning properly, creased and knotted and torn to shreds, spilling over the chassis like the explosive regurgitations of ten brown party poppers. The situation is beyond repair. I can discern tiny remnants of the original tape contents (voices in ritualistic wail and jeers of lunacy, abstract guitar experiments) but they flicker and fold over themselves, tattered and dying in the wake of some dreadful act of vandalism.'

Thank you ATTN:magazine! Read the full review here

Tape copies are still available via the Crow Versus Crow Bandcamp, as are digital downloads, if you prefer.

Thank you to everybody who has picked up copies so far. Your support means a great deal and affects the existence of this here Crow Versus Crow project a great deal. Onwards through 2017...

Grey Guides - Beast Mask Supremacist (CVC003)

It's an absolute pleasure to be able to present you with Grey Guides' Beast Mask Supremacist, available as a limited edition cassette and digital download via the Crow Versus Crow Bandcamp.

Available as an edition of 50 cassettes, Beast Mask Supremacist is the third release from Leeds-based duo, Grey Guides, following two self-released CDRs, Back to Mucus and Songs from Grüppen Aleph-Aleph.

With Beast Mask Supremacist, the duo of Lynden St. John (vocals, tapes) and Matt Hurricane-Salt (guitar), accompanied by the presence of spiritual mediator Hogan, disseminate decrepit fragments of an abstract, non-linear narrative revolving around a cast of elusory characters perceptible only on the periphery of consciousness; Glimmers of structures emerge with a sense of uncanny familiarity from the ritualistic drone and ecstatic din, before becoming submerged once again within the complex void; Subliminal transmissions soaked in layers of whirling hiss and magnetic skree. A Burroughsian séance.

'The music staggers along bathed in hiss, echo, and garbled voices, sounding like aging tape recordings of a ritual or séance reassembled into chilling noise transmissions. This music creeps under your skin and deep into the recesses of consciousness. The titles are ace to boot, e.g. ‘Just Burned Down a Care Home’, or ‘Yoo Doo Rite’.'

Spool's Out


'Tuned into the Fortean Times this duo’s reification cacophony of subliminal and subconscious entities – messages from the damned and inter-dimensional – is a most unnerving soundtrack. Imbued in part by early Throbbing Gristle, Blood Stereo, and of course the archdeacon of strange macabre and strung-out visions, William Burroughs, Beast Mask Supremacist is an imaginary (we hope) field recording expedition beyond the ether. Whether they got out alive remains questionable; the found remnants sounding like a battle between complete immersion and total destruction.'

Monolith Cocktail


'Now this well might out weird even those impish chaps the truth about frank in terms of sonic hi-jinks that messes with your head...truly an unnerving and uneasy listening experience all squirelling tape manipulations, hissing howls, white noise terrorphonics and er – primitive chanting and something which we’d have to say and admire, features among the mayhem and melee some of the finest blood lusting wolf howls we’ve heard on a platter since UK Decay’s ‘rising from the dread’. Approach with due care.'

The Sunday Experience

Order Grey Guides', Beast Mask Supremacist from the Crow Versus Crow Bandcamp