Nosferatu D2 – ‘It’s Christmas Time (For God’s Sake)’

It makes sense to start at the beginning, doesn’t it? This song comes from Nosferatu D2’s posthumous debut final album: We’re Gonna Walk Around This City With Our Headphones On To Block Out The Noise. Audio Antihero started in 2009 to release this album since no one else was going to and I wanted it on CD. Thanks to Gareth Campesinos! and lots of other folk, the album ended up doing really well–and for a long-time it was what this label would be known for. 

Honestly, I’ve been telling that same story for fourteen years. If anyone has been paying attention I’m sure they’re bored to tears hearing it again. I don’t get tired of Nosferatu D2 though, which is key because it can otherwise feel a bit sad to still be shilling ancient back-catalogue.

That was the point of this belated release though, I wanted people to hear it and I knew that I always would. As a label, it does feel great to have something new to share but I can’t imagine releasing an album that I didn’t least hope would still be worth talking about fourteen years later.

Like everything Nosferatu D2 did, the recording sounds like it’s held together by tape, and it rattles with the beat–but it might be my favourite ever Christmas song, certainly it’s the one I most relate to. In 2014, Spencer Madsen published ‘You Can Make Anything Sad’, and that title might best describe Nosferatu D2 and my connection to their work.

I often tell people that I “hate Christmas,” but what I truly hate is that I just can’t love Christmas. It’s no-showing the office party each year, it’s looking at the “Pound Shop Santa in a plastic sleigh” and feeling nothing, and it’s sitting down for Only Fools & Horses without comfort or contentment. I’d skip the whole thing if I could, and a few times I have.

It’s funny because Nosferatu D2 really did so well. As a dead band on a first timer one-person DIY label, the album kinda overachieved and found an audience, but that CD-buying fanbase never quite translated to Spotify, which in part is my fault for being a late adapter but is probably also common for inactive independent releases. In recent years however, Nosferatu D2 have been getting a bit of a boost on Spotify at this time of year. This particular song has amassed a modestly respectable 37,000+ streams thanks to playlists like ‘christmas cries‘, ‘Christmas Music for Pretentious People‘, ‘loser christmas playlist‘, and bless them: ‘It’s Christmas time for God’s sake‘. 

Between Nosferatu D2, The Superman Revenge Squad Band, and Tempertwig (featured by Various Small Flames here), I’ve worked on a few albums from the Parker brothers. I don’t think that myself or either Parker had particularly aimed for their lasting legacy to be having a very nominal Christmas hit but as their song ‘A Footnote‘ illustrates: you’re lucky to be a part of all this any way that you can be. If you put enough time into it all then you’ll learn that there’s far worse things to be known for in music than having a song people like listening to.

If people should ever want to explore songs like ‘Springsteen’, ‘Broken Tamagotchi’, ‘The Kids From ‘Fame’, ‘The Mojo Top 100’ or ‘Colonel Parker, they’ll all still be there.

Frog – Wish Upon a Bar

If Nosferatu D2 is what Audio Antihero was “known for” (relatively speaking) in its earlier years, then Frog (interviewed by Various Small Flames here) is what Audio Antihero is best known for now (still speaking relatively). ‘Wish Upon a Bar‘ is taken from their Kind of Blah album, which was the first of five that we’ve now worked on together. 

This 2015 album is certainly one of the favourites, though they’ve become so eclectic, and seen such an increase in their audience since that I don’t think there’s any clear favourite. Count Bateman has a lot of fans now and, from within my hyperfixation bubble, November’s GROG album is feeling like a phenomenon right now.

‘Wish Upon a Bar’ is highlight of an album filled with highlights (‘Judy Garland’, ‘All Dogs Go to Heaven’, ‘Catchyalater‘, ‘Photograph’, ‘Irish Goodbye’, ‘(Kind of Blah)’) and I think it has that special quality where it’s a song set over Christmas without being a song about Christmas. 

Don’t tell me where you are
don’t send me holiday cards
I’ma drop dead drunk on the FDR
I wish upon a bar

It’s almost Christmas time
the bartender’s cutting limes
and he asks you about your kids
you respectfully decline

The pain that Bateman describes in ‘Wish Upon a Bar’ existed in November and it’ll exist in January too. If anything, Christmas exists in ‘Wish Upon a Bar’ as a threat–it’s the looming presence of what feels like state-mandated closeness, and the pressure of expectation to feel what you maybe don’t and to be who you maybe aren’t.

To make a Cinematic comparison, 1974’s Black Christmas (considered by many to be the first North American-made slasher) is a brilliant horror film set over the holidays. The season informs the mise-en-scene and influences the circumstances of the plot, but what makes that film so haunting is the sheer randomness of the violence. This could have happened in any home at any time, but it happened here and now. Compared to a film like Silent Night, Deadly Night which relies on the novelty of a psycho-Santa killer, it’s clear how special Black Christmas is–and while it is a brilliant film to gather the children together for on Christmas morning, it shouldn’t be isolated in novelty sub-genre. If you’re not a horror fan, then think Die Hard vs. Jingle All the Way.

Just as there’s plenty of tedious Festive horror films, there’s a lot of shite Christmas songs too–and “Alternative” Christmas songs are no different. Punk covers of ‘Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer’ with bonus-swears are just not for me. ‘Wish Upon a Bar’ and Black Christmas are works that can be appreciated all year round–but they do gain some unsettling powers as the weather gets colder.

Slotted onto Kind of Blah at track three, the Christmas A Go Go! blog called it a “hidden Christmas track,” and I liked that.

Papernut Cambridge – ‘93 Million and One’

People tend to know Ian Button from his work in Death in Vegas, which is funny because I knew Death in Vegas for their work with Ian Button. Ian drummed for Audio Antihero alumni Paul Hawkins & The Awkward Silences, but there’s no way to express his contribution to the group. As a producer, he helped to channel Hawkins’ raw talent and creativity into a blistering debut record for Jezus Factory Records. On stage, Ian helped to contain much of the chaos and was the foundation for increasingly ambitious arrangements.

He had been quietly releasing his own songs for a while but when Ian’s new Papernut Cambridge monicker debuted with ‘93 Million and One’ in the Darren Hayman & Fika Recordings 2011 advent calendar, I was pretty blown away.

From here, Papernut Cambridge became a fully-fledged project, and with the subsequent founding of Gare Du Nord Records, he seemed to really find the freedom to be as prolific and experimental as he truly wanted to be.

There’s lots of great Papernut Cambridge songs, clever, touching, funny, and eclectic, but this little Christmas surprise is the one I always come back to. Whether it’s leading the charge or as a helping hand for the works of others, Ian is a real gift to music and a joy to know.

Benjamin Shaw & Fighting Kites – ‘This Christmas (I Just Want to be Left Alone)’

This was Audio Antihero’s only halfway earnest attempt at a Christmas single. Fighting Kites (featured by Various Small Flames here) were a brilliant band, instrumental and experimental without being pretentious. Their songs were danceable, melodic, beautiful, and fun. I have many joyful memories from their shows.

Conversely, Benjamin Shaw (reviewed by Various Small Flames here), who has since been reborn in Australia as a progressive house DJ called Megadead, was a relentlessly pretentious singer-songwriter with a daft tiny guitar. You were not dancing at this gloomy gut’s shows, and had you even tried, he’d probably have mumbled something rude into the microphone.

Though very different, these friends and labelmates collaborated on a Christmas charity single for Shelter. In a similar vein as ‘It’s Christmas Time (For God’s Sake)’ (which Benjamin Shaw also has a version of), it’s a grudging shrug into the happiest time of the year. The song explores the gnawing feeling of knowing that the one thing you want for Christmas (a day off work without pressure and performance) would be a heartbreaking insult to all around you for reasons you’ll never understand.

It’s not really a representative introduction for either artist but there’s clear chemistry here, which it would have been great to see expanded on with more recordings. I have a great memory of seeing them performing this together live and it was great to see Ben stop moping about in his box room and have a bit of fun with his friends for a change.

Fun fact: Benjamin Shaw did briefly have a regular backing band and they sounded incredible together. When I asked him to record a session of his solo songs with this expanded line-up he said “I’m not Tom Jones, Jamie!” and refused. Too bloody right you aren’t, Ben.

pen pin – ‘Office Party’

If you’ve followed Audio Antihero or Various Small Flames, you might already know the great Jeni Magana who comprises half of the pen pin duo with Emily Moore. ‘Office Party’ is their second single, a delightful song about seeking love at the office Christmas party.

By touching on the absurdity of “celebrating” within your workplace, and seeking a romance with your colleagues (the smallest fish in the smallest pond), it casually offers a terrifying message about capitalism without dropping its gorgeous sheen of 60s pop naivete. Naturally, I prefer their Halloween song but this is stil a really good one.

If there’s a positive to the season, it’s the reminders it offers you of the friends and loved ones you don’t get to see very often. Love you, Jeni, miss you, mama. Glad you’re doing well. Jeni’s solo work is all over Various Small Flames, so when four pen pin singles just isn’t enough for you, there’s still plenty more to dig into within the VSF vault.

Frog – ‘Space Jam’

It would be daft to go on about Frog’s seasonless (but not unseasoned) seasonal offerings after discussing ‘Wish Upon a Bar’ at length–but ‘Space Jam’ from their debut (reviewed by Various Small Flames here), offers something similar:

Thursdays I met you ‘neath the Garibaldi statue
And I held my breath as you came over,
Looking like the best of Auld Lang Syne
Lip-synced Sinatra blarin’ out an idling mack truck…

There’s a bar outside my window and they’re playing My Sharona.
It’s Christmas time, I think so, and the air feels just like home…

Danny Bateman writes songs that understand that Christmas isn’t one unshiftable block of good cheer. We get scraps of time off work where we’re required to be the jolliest versions of ourselves like you can just flip a switch. All the while, loss, regret, grief, illness, exhaustion, anxiety, insecurity, and desire persist. “‘cus it hurts” indeed.

This year is as good an example as any. I’ve bought mince pies and Christmas crackers to amuse my American in-laws, the TV and radio will get shitter and shitter, decorations will go up, and thoughtful gifts will be exchanged. But nothing has stopped. The UK and US governments are supporting Israel in committing a white supremacist genocide against Palestinians this December. If God allows it, Christmas doesn’t stop it.

Broken Shoulder – ‘Stille Nacht’

Broken Shoulder (featured by Various Small Flames here) is former Fighting Kites guitarist Neil Debnam, he began working on solo material due to the physical limitations he experienced when he, as you might have guessed, broke his shoulder. I was already a big Fighting Kites fan and was lucky to release his debut solo album, Broken Shoulderrr, which was all gorgeous sprawling soundscapes, looping guitars, drones, fuzz and lovely lovely NOISE. 

It was a bit of a departure for Audio Antihero but I did a few records with him, and hopefully I didn’t do too bad a job. Sensing my limited understanding of the genre, he joked gently once about how he’d need to prepare “a riffy song for Jamie” when I asked him to contribute to one of our compilations. My mum always called his music “strangely beautiful,” which is a happy memory I have of her now.

There’s a slightly more festive ‘Stiller Nacht‘ version which I also love, but the original is perfect as it is. The composition is performed primarily with a khene, a mouth organ and Laos’ national instrument. It produces the most beautiful sound.

Though themed on a silent night, this composition gives me images of daybreak–but one reserved for cinema, a sunrise intended to express both the power of nature and the terror of pollution. My eyes burn when I hear it.

Whether Broken Shoulder offers a silent night or the dawning of a new day is pretty irrelevant. For me, he offers exactly what I spend most of Christmas day pining for: a few wordless, solitary minutes, ushering in the end of Christmas day or the beginning of a new day. However bittersweet both might be.

In my quasi-annual Christmas shilling of back-catalogue, this eight-and-a-half-minute instrumental never quite makes it on the radio–but I optimistically continue to include it. I don’t know how you do this sort of thing but part of me will always believe that it’s destined for the big screen. Love you, Neil, miss you, king. I hope you’re doing well, mate.

I’ve put all the above songs together here. Frog’s “GROG” LP is out now via Audio Antihero. It’s good to be back, lads.

The post I Just Can’t Love Christmas: A Holiday Mix by Audio Antihero’s Jamie Halliday appeared first on Various Small Flames.

For those unfamiliar, Broken Shoulder utilises looping guitar lines, field recordings and noise to weave soundscapes that appear both minimalist and fully-formed, Debnam possessing an exceptional ability to balance beauty and chaos. Which is how his songs manage to span the entire spectrum of moods, from pretty tenderness to needling dread, and blend a careful expertise with experimental, improvisational fluidity. In doing so, Broken Shoulder acts not only as a solid counterpoint to the frenetic Fighting Kites sound, but also as a pertinent soundtrack to contemporary life—bridging between the human and inhuman, organic and digital.

Just as with Shaw and Fighting Kites, we’ve given Debnam the space to reminisce about his music, taking us through the anthology and giving a little insight into the how the songs came to be.

Shark Island (Crow Versus Crow Session)

I had no idea when I recorded this session quite how important a part of my life the Crow Versus Crow radio show would be. Huge thanks to both Mr Audio Antihero for arranging this and for introducing me to a show that would in turn introduce me to so much good new music and uncover a whole scene that I was not really aware of. And big thanks to Mr Crow for letting me do a session. It has always been an honour to have my stuff played on his shows alongside a lot of excellent music.

This version of Shark Island is a classic example of what I feel is a later version of a song being better than the original. In spite of it being played live there seems to be less obvious fluffs in it than the original (a large portion of which I should say was also recorded live), and there seems to be a more defined structure, whereas a lot of the original was improvised and consequently there was a fair bit of searching for where the song was supposed to go.

Oak & Mirrors (Crow Versus Crow Session)

Oak & Mirrors is named after the ceiling of a pub I like. The song first appeared on the Tape of Disquiet release and was my love letter to the first Tortoise album or at least this bit (the middle section) was. I always thought this would be fun to do with a band, but then maybe the Tortoise rip-off would be even more obvious than it already is. Guess it would sound better to call it a tribute rather than a rip-off, but if the cap fits…

Don’t Get Caught In The Treads

I’d been trying to get this ‘field recording’ of my keys rattling whilst I walked over some loose drain covers in Kawasaki into a song for a while and finally managed to do so [on the Bern Yr Idols Audio Antihero Compilation], combining it with this nice little Papa M-like guitar part. What can I say, I wear my influences on my sleeve. Think I must have got a new bubbly noise maker before I recorded this, as I seem to be enjoying using it a lot on this track. Perhaps a little too much actually. I like the occasional extra-loose drain cover sound the most on here.

Eating Flowers

Can’t deny that as much as I might pretend otherwise, I really love playing these kind of big riffs. And I think I like it even more when they are slightly fluffed as this one is at times. It was probably recorded at very low volume though. I’m also enjoying hearing that £20 Argos acoustic guitar. That was probably the most fun to play guitar ever. And excellent value too! If you only listened to the start and the end of this song, you’d probably never imagine it was the same piece.

I’m shocked about how many things surprised me listening to these songs. Perhaps that says equal amounts about my memory and my creative process. I miss some of that gear I was using back then. Some items have been returned to their owners, some have broken.

Morning Is Broken (Resonance FM Session)

This session was pretty terrifying. No pressure, just LIVE ON THE RADIO! It was a lot of fun though and the host pointed out something I’d never noticed before which was that in times of tension and stress (the interview), I clutch my broken shoulder. Not sure how exciting for the audience my interview was. Actually can’t recall any of it apart from the shoulder clutching. I’ve always loved this song.

There’s an unintentional Stereolab rip-off that was only noticed the next time I listened to the Stereolab record. And of course the song is much longer than it normally is. That’s one of the perils of live-looping and general panicky performance I guess. Fame-wise, it was probably all down hill from here. I can hear the fear in the playing, but hopefully you can’t. The key to not getting found out is when you make a clanger, just repeat it, as if that’s what you meant to do.

That’s a real bass guitar being used in the session but you’ll probably be shocked to hear that the marimba at the end is actually a keyboard! WOW!

Family Banana Coaster

Perhaps this title is internet searchable but the ride is now gone. I never rode the family banana coaster. It looked a bit tame. I would have been more interested in an adults only banana coaster. Although having written that, I can now understand why such a name would never be used for fear that it would be misconstrued. This bass riff had sat on my loop station for ages since a Fighting Kites rehearsal where we were trying to write some new songs. It never worked for FK but I always loved it so was delighted to finally have a chance to give it an airing.

This is almost like a real song with a verse and chorus and everything. Except there’s a dropped beat in the loop which makes it sound all pleasantly awkward.

Other Tropisms (The Wrong Rock Show Session)

Thanks to Jamie, this session made me huge in South Africa. Well, maybe not exactly, but it was once again lovely to be asked to do something for people to hear who would be way out of my normal path. It’s funny that the session was a split one with Jack Hayter as although we share a birthday we are musically pretty different. This doesn’t stop me from enjoying his tracks on this session though.

Listening back, I’m really pleased with the version of Other Tropisms on here. This is another one where the version recorded after the actual release turned out to be better than the original. Learning how to play stuff live focuses the mind a little, but at the same time restricts in an interesting way. The title came from a video I found I think in the Prelinger archive. Naturally I used it to make a ‘promotional video’ for the song. I can’t imagine how many extra sales it resulted in. I quite like it though. Should probably make some more videos.

Who Is Samuel Cocking? (The Wrong Rock Show Session)

Who IS Samuel Cocking? I know who he is, but maybe not many people do. If you visit Enoshima you might see his name. I’d like to say the song is a tribute to him, but, like many of my titles, the name has very little to do with the actual song. It’s just a result of me finding it amusing. I am easily amused.

I’d kind of forgotten about this song and am enjoying listening back to it. It has a big sound of the Japanese summer on there, an insect buzz that sounds like static, and has the sound of the crows in Yoyogi Park too. Perhaps the same crow that tried to attack me at a later date. I felt like screaming to it ‘I’m a long term vegetarian and animal lover, leave me alone!’ They may be very smart creatures but haven’t yet been able to pick up on my thoughts telepathically.

The bicycle bell also comes from Yoyogi Park. I like it when that chimes in. There’s also something that sounds like an approaching storm, but I suspect that might just be wind on the mic with a lot of echo on it. Spooky, eh? Had forgotten about the guitar twiddling at the end. It probably is faded out before a massive clunky wrong note, but quite like the way the guitar appears to be running late, has a quick look around and then pops off again.

Uff/Magow (WVUM Session)

Another session, another radio station, another country. I believe that this particular session has some added personal significance for Mr Audio Antihero but I’ll leave him to spill the beans on that if he wants to. This time the session was a double header with Benjamin Shaw, reuniting the Southern Records warehouse dream team, this time in musical performance rather than the packing of music product. I’m pretty sure these tracks were recorded live, as was my preference when doing sessions, perhaps because I was brought up on the idea of Peel Sessions. Sadly, I did it in my living room rather than a BBC studio. But they sound pretty good I think.

This session also featured a decent version of ‘Morning Is Broken’, a title which I always thought was quite amusing to me, but most people probably presumed was me just making a mistake with the title of the hymn. I kind of miss the days when I used to make little songs like these with maybe even tunes and structures, but deep down inside, I think my heart was always set on ploughing a big old drone furrow, even if people would prefer it if I hadn’t.

This version of Uff/Magow never made it to the broadcast but I’ve put it on here because it’s quite different to how the recorded version sounds. To be honest, that first album is a bit of a mystery to me now. I can’t remember or imagine how those songs came about, with their structures and parts. This version features a nice little guitar freakout at the start which is always fun to do, and the sharp cut into the song itself works quite well for once. I wonder how many times I had to try that before it worked well enough to use. The name of this song is another one of my secret titles that has a lot of meaning to me but almost certainly no meaning to anyone else. This song was always a lot of fun to play live and listening to it makes me want to go and pick up my guitar again. Actually, I probably should as I’m supposed to be recording a new thing featuring only guitar, but instead I guess I have to go to work. Hmmmm, slick ending to this song too. Well done me!

Ultimate Donko (WVUM Session)

This version of ‘Ultimate Donko’ features another extended guitar ‘work out’ at the end that was usually elongated when I played this song live due to the fact that I had to try to subtly fade out the main loop with either a finger or a toe whilst continuing to play. Seemed to work out quite well this time though and I’m pleasantly surprised listening again.

Cat’s Forehead

Another big old riff, probably played almost silently again in my living room to avoid annoying the neighbours. The Crow Versus Crow session version is a lot more sedate and delicate because it doesn’t have the bassline but in this version I seem to remember that if you isolate the bass part it sounds like it could be a Slowdive song! I was having computer trouble whilst recording this and couldn’t listen back whilst recording in real time so I put loads of reverb on the bass and hoped for the best. Really like how it came out. Like most of my favourite Broken Shoulder songs there’s probably too much going on but it just about hangs together and almost sounds kind of triumphant. At least to my ears anyway.

Give yourself a pat on the back reader/listener. You made it to the end of the album!

Shark Islands: A Broken Shoulder Archipelago is out now via Audio Antihero and Old Money Records and you can get it from the Broken Shoulder Bandcamp page.

The post Broken Shoulder – Shark Islands: a Retrospective appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Ruth Garbus – Strash
Mauno – Vampire
Outer Spaces – Gazing Globe
Benjamin Shaw – Long Ago and Oh So Far Away
Erin Durant – Islands
Daughter of Swords – Dawnbreaker
Melissa Mary Ahern – Maria, Maria
Oscar Lush – Kind Living
Midwife – Angel
Young Elk – False Paradise
Wilder Maker – Love So Well
Big Joanie – Way Out
Secrecies – Life We Live
Beat Radio – Everyone I Know, Just Holding On
American Poetry Club – pro pic?
So Totally – sike
halfsour – Paper Window
Joyer – Here
Marbling – Wisdom Teeth
High Sunn – Grateful
Slow Pulp – New Media
Molly Drag – Out Like a Light
Van Houten – Moon
Birdspotter – Riverbed
Tender Perennial – Delivered
JR Samuels – In Brend 2
Elly Swope – Habits
Derek Piotr – The Sign
Fighting Kites – Kita Senju
Nathalie Joachim – Papa Loko (Interlude: September 24, 1918)
Kali Malone – Sacrificial Code
Kate Tempest – Holy Elixir
Little Musket – Fever Blister
Gold Baby – 500/1
Tennis Club – Stay
Young Mammals – Lost in Lima
Abe Hollow – Paradise
bdrmm – Question Mark
Briston Maroney – Fool’s Gold

Check out our previous Monthly Roundup playlists, and be sure to read or Reviews and Previews throughout the month.

The post July 2019 Roundup Mix appeared first on Various Small Flames.

This extended as far as the line-up, with the original duo of Neil Debnam and Daniel Fordham releasing a self-titled EP before going on to become a trio with the addition of bassist David Stewart. After showing off their heavier sound on 2009’s Vlaams Tapes, they eventually added Luke Johnson to bring further dimensions and directions to the music. Because, far from being hyperactive pick and mixers, Fighting Kites utilised every element with consideration and care, crafting detailed and evocative soundscapes that eschewed the cheap crescendos so common in instrumental music in favour nuance and depth. The project culminated in 2012 with a self-titled album on Variant Records, the quartet enabling them to show off their richest, most intricate sound yet.

Post-Fighting Kites, its members have spread far and wide. Neil Debnam performs under the name Broken Shoulder and also founded the excellent Kirigirisu Recordings in Tokyo, Luke Johnson runs a band for adults with learning difficulties, The Gorgie Go-Getters, while David Stewart and Daniel Fordham went on to form The Drink, putting out two highly acclaimed albums on Melodic Records. While Fighting Kites is no more, the talents and energies that made it so are still very much at work in the world.

Still, in the spirit of a farewell tour, Audio Antihero can’t let sleeping dogs like, delving into the archives to share some of the stuff we might not have heard the first time around. As we saw with the Tempertwig release back in March, resurrecting the dead can be far more than an exercise in nostalgia or morbid curiosity, with some gems waiting to be unearthed from relative obscurity.

Mustard After Dinner – An Anthology of Fighting Kites collects material from a variety of sources—self-releases, compilation appearance, sessions, live recordings and even a collaboration with our good friend Benjamin Shaw—displaying the full range of the Fighting Kites experimental sound across twenty-two tracks and serving as something of an evolutionary tree for the band.

To get a better picture of the anthology’s scope, we invited the band to give a little context to each release, explaining how the project evolved over its lifespan.

Self-Titled EP

I worry a bit about how appalling my memory is: friends recount in great detail incidents from years ago of which I have absolutely no recollection. But this is so far in the past that for once I don’t think I have anything to feel bad about on the memory failure front. Here are four (it was going to be five but I ran out) things I can remember.

1. Fighting Kites was just Neil and me then. Gigs were a shambles of inept looping, instrument swapping and nervous breakdowns. To be honest it was a great relief when Dave said he would join in. Luke, a little bit later, was icing/cake.

2. We recorded (some of?) it in my bedroom in a house I shared with friends in Muswell Hill. It was very cold in that house in the winter. The cellar was full of old, crappy furniture which one of my housemates used to like to burn on the fire to keep us warm. I think we recorded the drums for Kita Senju and Slowly Slowly downstairs in our dear friend Michael (aka Woah! Melodic)’s room. He had more microphones than me.

3. The crackling sound at the beginning of Anthony Gankin is (I think) the sound of me scrunching up a plastic bottle, put through some effects. I was very pleased with it at the time. I still think it sounds great.

4. Slowly Slowly took its title from the slogan on a risqué t-shirt that our friend Richard Medina bought when we went with him to Barcelona once. Fortunately the internet doesn’t seem to have an image of the t-shirt, so I can’t share it here. You’ll have to imagine it.

– Daniel Fordham

The Resonance FM Sessions

Alright, I’ve no idea when this is from – see above re memory – but I do sort of remember doing it. Mainly I remember being terrified beforehand. Live radio! (I’ve done more terrifying things since, but not many.) It’s your first taste on this anthology of what I think of as the fully-evolved version of Fighting Kites, once we had Luke and Dave on the team. There are some occasional wonky spots from me – those nerves – but I think we give a pretty good account of ourselves here.

– Daniel Fordham

Northern Territory

No idea why it has this name but I remember Neil and Dan being particularly euphoric when the idea was dropped – is the very last thing we recorded as a band. It was recorded on a dark and wet December night in what would become New River Studios in North London, just a few weeks before our last ever gig at The Victoria on 21 January 2012.

It was a strange time as both Neil and I had said we would be leaving London – and as a consequence the band – so the recording session had these blue undertones and, when we finally managed to get it recorded, which took a lot of doing as we had to get it in a oner, I felt a punch to the gut because it was over.

I love the track, especially the chugging final section, which was super fun to play live and an indication of where we were heading had we continued. I know Dave was talking a lot about Hawkwind at the time – particularly Masters of the Universe – and I’m sure some of that bubbled over into Northern Territory.

– Luke Johnson

The Vlaams Tapes

In the summer of 2009 Fighting Kites went on an international tour. Admittedly it was a one date tour, but that still counts, right? We made our way to Kortrijk to play at Farm Fest which was relocated from the farm to the city centre and renamed Vlas Fest. In order to mark this exciting occasion we recorded a mini-album of rehearsal studio jams, homemade noise fuckery, a few live recordings and one super structured and meticulously recorded piece (The Hedgehog Incident) which, if I recall rightly was ‘commissioned’ for an internet kids TV show or something like that.

The concept was to make something a bit like the Faust Tapes, with some proper songs and some sketches and ideas stitched together into one semi-coherent whole. There were 50 copies made from brown paper and each featuring a unique photo, printed from some slides Luke found at a car boot sale. If you look closely you can find little riffs and ideas on here that would later bloom into whole songs on later recordings. This release also has a couple of our best song titles I think. The show in Belgium wasn’t our most successful. It was pretty hot outside and even hotter inside the venue which probably affected both our performance and reception. But the experience was awesome, I had a great time and will be eternally grateful to the Vlas Vegas guys for having us. Later on in the same trip, with me and Dan enjoying the feeling of being international musicians and after having enjoyed some of the delicious local refreshments I sleep-walked off the top of a bunk bed and broke my shoulder.

– Neil Debnam

Grey Starling (Live at Ryan’s Bar)

Grey Starling was a live staple of ours ever since its inception. The first incarnation of it can be heard on the Vlaams Tapes as the freeform jam Hat Luxury/Winkelplezier. This track was also informally known as Chicken Strut because Neil thought his guitar part sounded like a chicken pecking, which it does, however, when it came to our album proper we felt we couldn’t steal the track title from The Meters, hence we settled on another little pecker, the Starling, and made an offering to the nautical pun gods by adding Grey.

The track is taken from one of our live sets at Ryan’s Bar in Stoke Newington – a tiny 80 capacity basement that we could hire for free and programme with some of our mate’s bands. These gigs were some of our best and also the most fun to play. We’d spent a long time being at the mercy of other promoters trying to get the odd support slot here or there, so when we decided to start organising our own gigs it felt pretty exciting and reminded us that everything is better when you do it yourself, Fr.

– Luke Johnson

This Christmas (I Just Want to Be Left Alone)
w/ Benjamin Shaw

Oddly I do have quite vivid memories of doing this. Recording the band, live and as I recall in fairly rudimentary fashion (although Ben made it sound great, as is his habit), at the rehearsal room we used near Manor House. And then of me recording the horns and the all-important sleigh bells at home on my own when I was supposed to be “working from home”. My Christmas present to myself. The sax line borrows the opening melody from another well-known Christmas song: see if you can spot what it is.

– Daniel Fordham

Mustard After Dinner is out now via Audio Antihero and Old Money Records and you can buy it from Bandcamp.

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