New Time of the Motion Primitive

All works Sandra Selig/Leighton Craig

May/June 2012

Exhibited at Serial Space, Sydney June 2012.

Deep Pulse of a Low Tide

Poster by Primitive Motion

Red Beach, Bribie Island, 5pm

Escape to the Hole in the Sky

Escape to the Hole in the Sky by Primitive Motion

Ullo peeps. Primitive Motion are cobbling together a few albums at the moment and we found this lost space junk in the sock drawer. Ye Gods! Sandy Selig took some helium and slipped straight through the vortex, while FWY! chief pilot Edmund Xavier beamed down the beats from the control bridge at Video West.  Somehow the fuselage remained intact, careering through a dance floor of exploding asteroids. Hold on tight!

Image: Sandra (courtesy Milani Gallery)

Here I Give Thanks to Harold Budd

                                                                                               

                                                                                                                          Leighton Craig, 2002

Kindling Archives Vol. 3: Blowfly Saint

Blowfly Saint in Auckland, January 2006. L to R: Leighton Craig, Stefan Neville 

Blowfly Saint - In the Hole by Kindlingrecords

Stefan with the late Millicent Bystander
 at Kindling House, Dec 2007.

Blowfly Saint occurs when Stefan Neville and Leighton Craig cross paths in the same city for a few days. (Eugene Carchesio was also involved in the first session at the infamous Northgate sheds in 2005.)

The duo share an interest in facilitating closer Trans-Tasman relations, but believe the David Kidwell shoulder charge on Willie Mason in the first test in 2006 was a culturally appropriate act.

BFS has made a swag of recordings, with one piece ("Coast Road") released on the Need for a Crossing compilation that appeared a few years back on the Xeric imprint.

Stabbies etc HQ, Kingsland, Auckland

The track above was knocked out one hot December afternoon in the garage at Kindling House, Brisbane.  The little fella below is from a midnight session at Stefan's old pad in Kingsland, Auckland. Best endeavours were made to keep quiet for snoozing housemates...

Blowfly Saint patrolling the badlands.

Blowfly Saint - Grey Pitman of Huddock by Kindlingrecords

Border Rangers.

The Constant Flow of Light

Eugene Carchesio and Leighton Craig  - The Constant Flow of Light

Kindling House, May 2006

Recorded and produced May 2006 at Kindling House, Brisbane.

Field recordings: Leighton's backyard, Mt Tambourine and Peregian Beach.

Cover assemblages Eugene Carchesio. Photos Patrida Blake.

The days and nights in the wilderness showing the constant flow of light passing into a dark landscape, Colin McCahon, Days and Nights Series, 1971

The lost album now available as a complimentary download.

                                                                                   

Fig. 2

                                                                                            here comes the bird! 

                                                                                            it's sitting on a chair!

                                                                                                                                                         (the light!)

                                                                                            it's unlike me! 

                                                                                                                                                     (yeah)

                                                                                            it knows the air!  

                                                                                                                                                     (where?)

                                                                                                                                                     (nowhere)

Descendants of Air, Move in Time

Primitive Motion's Home of the Future box is available now. The boxes are a numbered edn of 30, designed and constructed by Sandra Selig. Each box contains seven 8 x 8cm black and white landscape images (photographed by Sandra, Leighton and Patrida Blake) and a 3" cdr of recordings made at Kindling House in June 2011.

"Brisbane art-pop explorers Leighton Craig & Sandra Selig return with an extended play opus HOME OF THE FUTURE. The signature elements are intact: Martin Rev's rhythm machines, thoughtful Casio melodies, wind instruments, but this time the vocals are bolder, more emotive…shades of Young Marble Giants' haunting classics & as cosmic as anything the German hippies in Amon Duul I conjured in-between breast-feedings. The closing six-minute INTERIOR SEA, built on a slow-burn boss nova beat, is a bright light on the current pop landscape." - Glenn Donaldson

The Home of the Future edn of 30 box:
$30AUD includes postage worldwide.

SOLD OUT SORRY

Just to spread the love, we've made a free download of the ep available from the Kindling Bandcamp site. Please help yourselves!

Fig. 1

Fig. Pale bluegreen wreath, faces pressed against the wall, passing through, into the cool night.

Fig. - Bone Dust by Kindlingrecords

Vulture Street Drum and Fife

In March 1993 I went to a show at Omniscient Gallery in Woolloongabba, a short lived art space opposite the legendary cricket oval.  It was in a damp cellar on a stuffy Brisbane summer night, a thick blanket of smoke hovering over the room, mixing with the odour of mould. It was suffocating. On stage were two guys calling themselves Two Poor Boys (The Invisible Empire in duo mode), one playing big blues chords while the other hammered away at a fuzz-boxed slide mandolin. I was an instant fan.


I'd just heard their first cassette, "An Unnatural Act", that had been lent to me by a new acquaintance, Ian Wadley. I'd been over to Ian's house in Highgate Hill the week before where he flatted with Pat Ridgewell, mastermind behind Small World Experience.  I remember pumpkins growing wild down the gully behind the house. Pat was cutting and pasting covers for the SWE 7' ep when I walked in. They grated beetroot and carrot onto toast with avocado for lunch. Strange the things you remember.

I walked out of the house with copies of three life changing sides under my arm: the SWE single, the DNE LP '47 Songs Humans Shouldn't Sing' and the aforementioned 'An Unnatural Act' cassette. Up until that point I'd lived in blissful ignorance of a true Brisbane underground. The music coming out of Port Chalmers had been the centre of my universe. It was a pivotal moment.

An Unnatural cassette cover

Simon Ellaby and David MacKinnon had recorded An Unnatural Act in 1990, drunkenly banging around David's one bedroom flat in a fog induced by excess consumption of 'super charged' port (cask port mixed alternatively with gin or brandy).  Third member Dina Bojic wisely gave the lads a wide berth as they overloaded the cassette player of David's trusty 3 in 1 stereo, four fuzzboxes in series doing the job nicely.  The results were a righteous racket, and quite unlike anything I'd heard before (or since).

At the time I mistook An Unnatural Act for a noise album, my misreading aided by the sonic limitations of my own playback device - a one-speaker bedside clock/cassette deck capable of making Mozart sound like Merzbow.  I somehow missed what seems so obvious now - that it was first and foremost a blues album. That said, let's be clear - it was some seriously weird sounding shit.  Those parts with mad laughter in them - yeah, that's real.   

The aforementioned DNE record (and later SWE's "Shelf Life"cd) were recorded at the house you see in the photo above on the corner of Vulture and Browning Streets in West End. So was the landmark third Invisible Empire album "Blondes Chew More Gum". The house got renovated about 10 years ago and these days is a solicitor's office. Back in the day it was a share house and practice space for several bands, including the Empire (later renamed The Lost Domain) and The Holy Ghosts.

From the Two Poor Boys cassette

By the time The Lost Domain were jamming at the Vulture St house, the trio had expanded into a glorious rockin' five piece with three drummers. Simon recounts clearing the pipes at Vulture St:

"I used to have a large white vinyl covered valve amp built by BJ amps out at Ipswich which he modelled on the old Fender Super amp used by Muddy Waters. BJ put in a volume boost foot switch which basically instantly quadrupled the volume. I remember playing my little acoustic mandolin with a bridge pick-up through 2 or 3 fuzz boxes in the ghost house room, feeling the dodgy old floorboards shake – there were holes in those boards which you could lose a small child down – then I’d hit the switch and I could feel the wind blow out from the amp speaker, then I’d have another drink."

The brethren also used to commune at Sheriff St, Spring Hill - not too far from the hallowed turf of Lang Park. Says brother Frank:

"Sheriff St backed onto The Windmill Fine Food Cafe – open 24 hours, all the food in the hot box at least that old too – we knew someone who knew someone who shared a house there, and off the side of that room was a large walk-in wardrobe, and into that space on a blistering Brisbane summer day we squeezed 3 guitarists, 3 drummers, and a 4 track and we recorded The New South instrumental track. 

Days later I went round to Dave’s to record the vocal overdub. He had the title as usual and I had the name of a girl, a vague idea and a six pack. Dave set everything up, and then went to take a leak, and when he came back I said I was ready and we cut the vocal in one take."

The Lost Domain - The New South by Kindlingrecords

The New South ended up on "Blondes Chew More Gum", lovingly assembled at the time by Shytone chief executive David Mackinnon, aka John Henry Calvinist, in his signature VHS box with inlaid cassette cases and booklets crammed with artwork, essays and mischievous false histories of the band. The Shytone cassettes were Dave's labour of love. I think he only made about 10 copies of each release - stamp numbered. Including the incredible double compilation cassette The Dead Set. Lordy, did they look and sound a treat.

Kindling House collection.

With the cassettes never really in existence, full marks go to the capital folks at Negative Guest List for their leap of faith in dropping "Blondes" onto two glorious slabs of wax enshrined in a deluxe gatefold adorned with gig flyers and a killer essay by Newcastle's favourite son, Jon Dale.

You can support a good cause and purchase a copy from NGL here. Rumour has it that NGL are also going to give "An Unnatural Act" the reissue treatment in mid 2012. We loves them yes we do.

Ian Wadley's flyer for the same show.

Epilogue: A couple of years ago local swedish dub master Bo Stalhman (see Lingonberry Jam post) contacted me to say he had a bag of cassettes someone had given him that looked like old Lost Domain recordings. We arranged a lunch rendezvous and when he arrived Bo dropped an old airline bag on the table with about 70 cassettes in it.  Sure enough, it was every early recording the band had made - all there with Dave's neat pencil notes on each one. 

To my delight one of the first cassettes I pulled out was the Omniscient Gallery show from '93 - my introduction to 'the family'.  The cover below of "Send Me the Pillow That You Dream On" is from the show, and was included in the band's second cassette "Jeezly Fishcakes" in '92.  I've lost my copy of Jeezly, so have taken this version straight from the live cassette. As such it won't feature Dave's damaged "recorded in a pre-war tin shed" mastering that no doubt graced the Jeezly track. That is to say, it's not as good as Dave's version, but it's kinda closer to what I heard that night. I trust you enjoy.

The Lost Domain - Pillow by Kindlingrecords

Logical Ascent

   

            

                

Images: Leighton Craig, Nov 2011

In the Hour Before The World, Return to the Strangeness We Know

28 November 2011: double shot espresso + The Age of Electronicus + Yoko + Coopers Sparkling Ale + super sandwich + Franklins Lab jam + Bribie Island beach walk + the dogs (Spencer, Photon and Tara) + End of the World sunset + Fish and Chips + Spacemen 3 drive home = The Key to the Locked Gate of the Unattainable Presidency of Universal Space (aka a fine way to spend a day off work)

Primitive Motion - In the Hour Before the World (Cut Paper) by Kindlingrecords

Primitive Motion - Return to the Strangeness We Know by Kindlingrecords

Velocity Acts Alone

Primitive Motion's two-part email talk fest with Ray Cummings has been published online by Baltimore based web magazine Splice Today: "...something akin to ancient melodies of the future, the sonic equivalent of idiot savant cave etchings, a sound that feels distant and near all at once."

Read part one here and part two here.

There's also a lengthy Primitive Motion chin wag with Edmund Xavier in Issue 30 of everyone's new favourite cut and pastey Negative Guest List.

What else me peeps?  Here's a little clip of Primitive Motion playing at the Bridge Club on 7 December. Our farewell to the loaned euphonium. Filmed by Jon Adams, backstage visuals by Leif Gifford, dancing man Michael Zukicki.

Lingonberry Jam and The Man in the Bag

The Deadnotes with special guest Bo Stahlman.  11 October 2011.

The Deadnotes - Kong by Kindlingrecords