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Adam Blake: "One of the things I like most about the album is that all the ancient Greek modes are represented on it. This wasn't intentional, it just happened. I bet there aren't any other new records of improvised electric music that could make the same claim!" Words | Ian, Hami & Adam Ian Blackaby [Frestless Bass, Guitars]: "I had no real idea what we sounded like as a band until we made the record. Not having played in a band since 1983 I had no firm idea what I was going to sound like either. Adam and I had started off in September 06 rehearsing really for the love of it, playing stuff like Mother Sky and Bloodsucker and some of Adam's originals. There was definitely an underlying Krautrock influence as we'd talked about our mutual love of Can and Amon Duul II etc but the music we were making was more song based and more recognisably Anglo-American. "When Hami started bringing loops and found sounds to rehearsals, that's when things started to stretch out, sometimes taking us into completely new territory, and accelerated the need to get the music recorded. The album captures us about three months into that process with the three of us pulling vigorously in slightly different directions but arriving miraculously in the same place." Adam Blake [Guitars]: "Miloco Pool" turned out to be a large, high-ceilinged room full of musical instruments – such as grand piano, vibraphone, glockenspiel and a wonderfully out of tune autoharp. Hami set up his drums on a platform in a makeshift tent. Ian and I set up our amps at right-angles to this tent and we were off. We had played together a grand total of ten times before we went in to record and the few structures we had we kept loose so as to leave plenty of room for surprises. We had agreed in advance how we were going to make the record: we would record as much raw material live as possible and the album would be constructed in the editing – much as we imagined Holger Czukay, Teo Macero and Uwe Nettelbeck had done in the early 1970s." "One of the things I like most about the album is that all the ancient Greek modes are represented on it. This wasn't intentional, it just happened. Ionian ["Loophole"], Dorian ["When I was On Horseback"], Phrygian ["Todal Gleeps"], Lydian ["Yaman"], Mixolydian ["Seaspray", "My Lagan Love"], Aolian ["Herzegovina"]. I bet there aren't any other new records of improvised electric music that could make the same claim!" Hami [Drums]: "I've always wanted to make an album in a week and this is the result. It was important for us to try and create what we had been doing in our sometimes prolonged improvisations in a rehearsal studio. We found a studio where we could set up like this, without headphones, a mixing desk and even a control room and just played our music, editing it a bit afterwards and then mixing it. If we had the money we could do another one next week!"  Lunar Dunes' tracks... From Above / As Below Ian: "Two sides of the same coin and the bastard cousins of Scatter. I like the way it launches and seems to shift gears effortlessly. None of this was pre-arranged. It's just two sections clipped straight out of a jam. I like to think Hami and I are getting close to the psychic interplay that JP Jones and Bonham had on stage." Adam: "From Above – This is an edit from the second jam we recorded on day one. It was an attempt to codify what we had come up with in the first jam which we thought would be unusable because of bass distortion, but which we wound up using anyway for... >From Above / As Below – a spontaneous mutation in D plucked straight out of the air." Herzogovina Hami: "A driving piece of locomotive funk with the guitar playing the tune of an old Nico song. Features Krupa on vocals alongside samples thrown around in a random fashion. Was going to be called Shrewsbury but decided on the name of a former Yugoslavian republic instead." Ian: "As a bass player this is the least interesting track for me to play but is arguably the most exciting piece of music on the record. The mélange of the loops, Krupa's vocal, the Nico guitar melody and Hami's drumming is an object lesson in controlled power and restraint." Adam: "The melody is from Nico's "Desertshore" album which I've always loved. I used a Rickenbacker 12 string on this and I was particularly pleased to get such a good sound out of it – even the feedback stays in tune! Krupa's vocal overdub gives this a different flavour – the only vocals on the album. One of my favourites, it was going to be the opening track but Tipler talked us out of it ["it's too long!"]" Loophole Ian: "This was my favourite track on the record while we were making it. Before going to the studio that day I was listening to Enrico Rava's "The Pilgim & The Stars" and learning the Chris Squire-like bass solo on 10 CC's "I'm Not In Love." You can hear a lot of those two elements in the bass melody which sprung out of our first stab at it and refined into an ad hoc arrangement in the break between takes. The tablas are what make it work." Adam: "Not another one in D", said Ian. "Try G instead", I said. This was the result. I had a backwards echo pedal which contributed a lot to what I was playing – anything rhythmic was out of the question! I like Hami's vibraphone overdub. This is the spaciest track on the record, and the happiest sounding I think." The Todal Gleeps Hami: "A monstrous piece of howling guitar and wolves dueting together... Thundering toms ,a rolling bass and sirens make this the heaviest track on the album." Ian: "This is our gothic [rather than Goth] Jim Steinman moment. Another one that I didn't enjoy playing at the time but it came out of the mix roaring and howling. Paul Tipler did a great job on this, giving it real purpose and menace. It could easily have been a cacophony of noise and horror with no fixed destination." Adam: "Evil Evil Evil! Ian provided the wolves. Cut down from eleven monstrous minutes, this was the hardest track to mix. It’s a very dense piece that repays repeated listens – for those brave enough." Seaspray Ian: "This has a nice Allman Brothers feel to it though it's very much the Allmans 21st century style. Adam's playing is just gorgeous but I bring a few too many of those little bass fanfares. I could hear Hammond organ on this, got a bit over excited trying to fill the gap and overplayed it." Adam: "This was the first thing we recorded on day two, again plucked out of thin air. Edited into three sections from over twelve minutes. Keyboards by me and Hami. Going from E to D and back again is one of my favourite occupations." Yaman Ian: "This is for me the most progressive and original track on the record. Adam had a sitar melody which the guitar and bass both refer to, Hami brought the Transglobal thing to it and I got into a late 60s Pharaoh Saunders / Roland Kirk feel. It's beautifully under stated. The sort of record ECM should be putting out." Adam: "The melody is one I've had lying around since I took sitar lessons many years ago. It's named after a classical Indian raga. This version ends a little abruptly but I'm so glad to have finally recorded it." Rowing Boat Ian: "A composition that Adam brought in and a survivor from the early rehearsals. This came out like something from Zappa's "Zoot Allures" period. Especially with the vibes doubling the melody. Adam was very patient while I repeatedly failed to learn this peculiar twelve bar sequence. I can never ever remember arrangements from one rehearsal to the next but this came out rather well." Adam: "An instrumental version of a song I wrote years ago, this is the only track on the album with any kind of formal arrangement. The boat sinking is a bit truncated but you get the general idea." When I Was On Horseback Ian: "Another Trad tune that Adam brought in. We're both big Fairport Convention fans and this to me sounds like Fairports if they had got into Alice Coltrane or the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Hami's drumming and loops once again take us into a completely different universe. This actually sounds a lot like The Verve circa 1992 when they were still a space rock band. In a good way." Adam: "This is a traditional Irish folk melody I first heard on a Steeleye Span record. Tipler had the bright idea of overdubbing a track of pure guitar feedback which gives it a ghostly feel. I like the way the 12 string blends with the tamboura. Very moody and dark." Scissorbell Ian: "Another big favourite of mine. Great loop. The evil twin of Yaman. I'm trying to sound like Charlie Haden would if he was in Spiritualized. It's superficially an exercise in sustaining an atmosphere but when you stop and actually listen to what Adam is playing... astonishing really. Hami and I lucked into the gear change though I think we earned our luck on this one." Adam: "A loop of Hami's that he sprang on us on the day. I'm playing slide. The breakdown was Tipler's idea which gives the track more structure. Hami's samples are really good. No-one else sounds like this." My Lagan Love Ian: "This is another one with a big debt to the late 60s English folk rock boom. Adam carries the load while Hami and I settle for a Doors' groove. Caroline Lavelle [Chieftains, De Dannan etc] added the cello afterwards. My only regret is that we didn't have her in the room with us as the guitar / cello interplay on this is but a fraction of what they could do with some eye contact." Adam: "A tribute to Sandy Denny's Fairport Convention and The Who "Live At Leeds." I always wanted to play the chord of A this loud and for this long and I'd just like to take this opportunity to thank my fellow Dunes for affording me the opportunity to do so. Caroline Lavelle added a touch of class by post, as we knew she would. Maybe one day we'll get her down in person." Scatter Hami: "Jazz / funk without any obvious jazz or funk in it. Edited down from 2 weeks to just under 4 minutes this spiky minor epic involves 2 drum kits and has all three of us, by the end, disintegrating into a morass of freeform joy... a fitting end to the album." Ian: "This is the closest we get to Pop Group and Rip Rig & Panic territory. Back in 1980 / 81 Bruce Smith and Sean Oliver were my favourite rhythm section, especially live, and Hami and I get close to capturing that intuitive perpetual motion, post-punk funk thing. The guitar provides the atonal icing on the cake. You wont hear that on a Ohio Players record." Adam: "Edited down from over 12 minutes, this is the last thing we recorded so it was appropriate that the edit should close the album. I'm glad we got a bit of freeform on there." Lunar Dunes - Hami's influenical albums: Konono No 1 [Congotronics] "Other wordly mad stuff from the suburbs of Kinshasa, Congo. The Mbiras [thumb pianos] and other homemade instruments play a shuffling can like Beat through old amplifiers. It's loud even when it's quiet... "The sound of distortion zombies make when coming down the road to kill us!" 
Holger Czukay - "Movies""Made in 1979 this album is one of my all time favs. A mixture of funky beats and samples [pre-samplers] operatic voices, spoken voices and a beautiful Iranian love song taped from a short wave radio and used to great effect on the track Persian Love. All done with a sense of humour. Met Holger once at the Sonar festival in Barcelona... Told him that Persian Love was one of my all time great tracks and he said... "I know it is” and wondered off!" Miles Davis - "Lift to the Scaffold" "A moody, evocative soundtrack to the Louise Malle noir classic. The music was improvised to picture." Yat Kha - "Tuva rock" Anything by Yat Kha in fact. The Republic of Tuva lis situated in the extreme south-east of Siberia. Yat Kha create an eclectic mix of driving rock guitars, throat singing and Tuvan folk instrumentation. This is heavy rocking with the blend of their own ethnic and cultural roots. The Sonic Youth of Tuva. Tuva has at least 8000 rivers." 
Miles Davis - "In A Silent Way"Considered to be his first electric fusion album it was constructed by the editing and arrangement of Teo Macero. "From Above" has a similar approach. Don Cherry - "Brown Rice" Don Cherry’s album of 1975 is a of mystical, hypnotic world funk classic with lots of whispering vocals ,glockenspiels, wah guitar and Gamelan scales. An unsung classic. |
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