Our Yuletide favourites have made it to Mixcloud.
Bounden – free Christmas music
Merry Christmas and Blessed Yule! We have recorded a little version of Adam Lay Ybounden for your listening pleasure.
XPYLON – new charity compilation in aid of Mind
We contributed a track to this brilliant new compilation, which you can pre-order now. Below is a full player and the press release. Please give this the attention it deserves. Out 6th August.
Once upon a time there was a radio show, then there was a series of live gigs and events. Eventually, there was a record label. They were all called Exotic Pylon. There was one man who was the creator, curator and driving force behind all these things: a man called Jonny Mugwump. Jonny is as close to a raging Darwinian force of nature as you could ever meet. He’s a whirlpool of creativity and enthusiasm. He was the pied-piper and we all followed him, sucked in by his strange gravitational pull towards an event horizon of his own making. Once you were there inside the Pylon universe, anything could happen.
The first year of the radio show on London’s Resonance FM was a scattershot affair. It was if the contents of Jonny’s brain were jammed into a blunderbuss and shot into the mic. As the years went on, he was joined by various ne’er-do-wells playing live, who filled the tiny studio to the brim, often times spilling out into the station’s carpark outside. Paul Snowdon (Time Attendant) began to co-host after a while. You would think this would have had a stabilizing effect on Jonny and the show (Paul Snowdon was and remains the single most laid back man in creation), but no. They spent many a time broadcasting throughout the night, widely improvising madcap electronic soundscapes to anyone who happened to tune in at 3am. The show was as eclectic as they come. Anything and anyone came and went. It started to become a hub for eccentrics to ply their wares or just hang out while Jonny somehow seemed to hold it all together by the skin of his teeth.
It seemed only natural for the show to move into the live arena and there then followed over a year of live gigs in London. They were, like the radio show, ramshackle affairs where anything could happen from one show to the next. There was never anything uniform about Exotic Pylon. It was never pin-downable. It was always on the move. Always moving. Always exciting. There were nights where magic would happen. Where you would see combinations of acts that could’ve only been programmed deep inside Jonny’s hyperactive brain. There was nothing like it. And I don’t think there ever will be again.
The record label became a combination of all that had gone before. Each release was completely unique. There was no through-line of sound. No label aesthetic. The one thing they all had in common was they had nothing in common. From torch songs to folk, from electronica to spoken word. All human life was on the label (assuming the human life was slightly lop-sided and walked with a limp).
The one thing that united everyone on Exotic Pylon was a sense of comradeship. We were all proud to have been involved in some way or another. We were all members of the same invisible college. Almost without exception we all kept in contact with each other once the label had died. It may have disappeared but its spirit has remained.
So, with that in mind, we present XPYLON, a compilation of ex-Pyloneers. Each track is brand new and exclusive to the release. There are supergroups, individuals and collaborations, all of which evoke the heady days of the once great Exotic Pylon.
Every year, one in four of us will experience a mental health problem. But hundreds of thousands of people are still struggling.
All proceeds from the album are going to Mind, the mental health charity.
Mind believe no-one should have to face a mental health problem alone. They will listen, give you support and advice, and fight your corner.
credits
releases 06 August 2015
1 – Music by Cindy Talk
2 – Words, music and other noises by Golau Glau.
3 – Music by Jonny Perl and Robert Conroy. Words by Robert Conroy. Track recorded, engineered and produced by Julia Brightly
4 – Music by Gloria Gloucestershire & Words by Dolly Dolly (remix by Ekoplekz)
5 – Written & produced by Ed Gillett
6 – Music by Robin The Fog and Ray Carmen
7 – All words and sounds written and produced by Portia Winters
8 – Music by Sophie Cooper
9 – Music by Paul Snowdon
10 – Music by The British Space Group
11 – Music by Kemper Norton
12 – Music by I Am A Vowel
13 – Music by Farmer Glitch
14 – Music by Robin the Fog, Text by Johny Brown, Vocals by Dolly Dolly
15 – Music by Saxon Roach. Additional vocals by Hero Roach
16 – All noise by Francesca Ziolini and Daniel Baker
Mastered by Gregg Janman at Hermetech Mastering
Art work by Scott Byrne.
tags
HENRY finally on Vimeo
The sound art with visuals we created for Beacons a couple of years ago is now on Vimeo in full. Enjoy.
‘Personal Politics’ is a collection of songs, old and new, about love and politics and sex and death and really the things that all art is about. You can download it for free from the Golau Glau Bandcamp now. Here we are, releasing a new Golau Glau album on a Saturday night as an Eosturmonath present to all of you.
So many times we’ve thought a record of ours was going to come out with a label, and then they’ve dumped us. Several of them. Not by text or by email or by fax like Phil Collins. No, by empty promises followed by silence. They never really loved us, sob. So really we should take the hint and fight the silence with noise, and keep putting that noise out on Pin Factory (our own label) and keep our own promises until enough people care. That’s how it should really work anyway.
Personal Politics – New Album (free download)
Golau Glau and the Palindrone Jukebox at the Tetley
If you go to the Tetley in Leeds between 24 January and 28 February, you will find a free-standing booth dubbed the ‘Palindrone Jukebox’ which will house seating and a shelf of bespoke vinyl records, with specially commissioned palindromatic compositions which visitors can select from and play on the self-reversing turntables. One of these palindromic vinyl records was supplied by Golau Glau.
The Reversing Machine
Sam Belinfante & Simon Lewandowski
24 January – 28 February 2014 The Tetley, Leeds
PV: Friday 24 January, 6 – 8pm
The Reversing Machine is an exhibition conceived by artists Simon Lewandowski and Sam Belinfante. At the exhibition’s core is the machine itself; a self-reversing mechanical power source*. Any object attached will turn at a steady rate for a set time then stop and be set into reverse – a mechanical palindrome.
Commissioned by Art Laboratory Berlin in 2012, the machine has expanded into an ongoing research project. For The Tetley Belinfante and Lewandowski reconstruct this collective work, incorporating fresh elements in response to the new gallery. They have also developed individual works which reflect on their collaboration and on the concerns that generated The Reversing Machine. These include Accordion a new two part film by Belinfante shot on 16mm film and SETTER a palindromic multiple by Lewandowski.
A repertoire of satellite devices driven by The Reversing Machine act out and reflect ways in which we are able to perceive the flow and passage of time through the action of things and forces in the world. Devices choreographed by the machine include adapted record players, household light fittings, slide projectors and a variety of sculptural automata.
Central to the installation is a pair of turntables driven by the machine which plays a repertoire of specially composed vinyl records. This is The Palindrone Jukebox.
Artists that have produced compositions for the The Palindrone Jukebox include;
Ed Atkins / Sam Belinfante / Alice Bradshaw / Adam de la Cour / Manya Doñaque / Golau Glau / Kirsty Harris / Doug Haywood / Lou Hazelwood / Martin Iddon and Antti Sakari Saario, writing as [zygote] / Andy Ingamells / Simon Lewandowski / Kevin Logan / Joanna Loveday / Leah Lovett / Neil Luck / Jessica Rowland / Oliver Thurley / Nathan Walker and Tom Walker / Sam Warren
Events:
An incorporated event programme of daytime and evening performances, talks and workshops will run throughout this project. For more information on these and the show as a whole visit The Tetley’s website.
Supported by:
The Elephant Trust
Arts Council England
University of Leeds
*The Reversing Machine mechanism was designed and built by Alistair Metcalf at Effects Too.
Christmas EP 2013 – The Silver Tear is OUT NOW
Here it comes. The new Golau Glau Christmas EP is here: ‘The Silver Tear‘
It is free to download as ever. Merry Christmas and a Blessed Yule.
Golau Glau are not dead…
…well, maybe we are just sleeping.
We have had a lot to deal with in the past year or so, unrelated to the collective, and we haven’t had the time to be here. At the same time, nothing much happened when we put our album out last September, and it’s hard not to feel disheartened by that. We’re not trying to be famous, or really popular, but equally we make art to move people as well as scratch an itch. If they don’t even flicker, it’s our fault.
Members of the collective may pop up elsewhere making music and other things that are not quite like GG and do not feel as if they belong here.
Here is a song, The Last Revolution, about the Pentrich rebellion.
Other than that, see you at Christmas for the usual EP. Some traditions are hard to break.
Listen Again to The Silver Satchel – Sixteenth Folio
This is the Sixteenth Folio taken from from The Silver Satchel, Golau Glau‘s radio show. The Silver Satchel broadcasts on the fourth Wednesday of every month, from 6-8pm UK time on Space Invader Radio.
Unbuckle the leather satchel, silvery and mysterious and crammed with books and papers. Carefully slide out the fist of papers marked “Winter Freeze”. Within is contained the sixteenth folio of curios for broadcast. Blow off the dust and breathe in the magic…
TRACKLISTING:
Tight Rope – Claude Denjean
The Last Man in the Factory – Megson
Summer Kisses Winter Tears – Elvis Presley
Under Atacama Stars (Live) – Paul Thomas Saunders
Delilah – Horace Andy Baltimore Oriole – Hoagy Carmichael Summer – Takahiro Kido
Am I The Same Girl – Winsome Same Love (feat. Mary Lambert) – Macklemore & Ryan Lewis Sweet Life – Frank Ocean
Keep Britain Tidy – New Seekers
Everyone Is A Complete Disappointment – Joan Giorino
A Pessimist Is Never Disappointed – Theaudience
Through The Iron Gate – Wild Beasts Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla – Jack Sheldon
No End – Sandy Denny, Trevor Lucas and Friends
Cloudy Lemonade – Alfie
Self Service – Studio
Two Good Lives – Lone Wolf
Slow Jamz (feat. Twista & Jamie Foxx) – Kanye West Tiny Little Bows – Carly Rae Jepsen Reap The Whirlwind – Cellutron & The Invisible
Five Man Army Dub – Lewin Bones Lock Windrush – King Of Woolworths
Stop Remembering TV – J Xaverre
Amy aka Spent Gladiator 1 – the Mountain Goats The Angels Sang – The Solitaires
Golau Glau – The Silver Satchel
A New Kind of Bleak – iTunes pre-order
Our new album, the soundtrack to Owen Hatherley’s book A New Kind of Bleak, is available for pre-order from iTunes now. It is released on 3rd September 2012.
The album is digital-only, but will be available from other sites such as Juno (including lossless formats) in due course.
A minisite for the album is coming soon.
Golau Glau 