Interview With Derry Lannnn (Part One)
Whilst Derry Lannnn is the man responsible for the sound of some of 2010s most unique records, he is also the current face of mental illness charity Calm Down. Lannnn suffers from an acute fear of desks both wooden and sound. He has spent the year facing his fears by twiddling the knobs for bands such as Superocean and Hitler and The Nasties. Reports coming out of the sessions point to episodes of meltdown and recovery, to periods of deep introspection and bouts of ultra-violence. Lannnn is by all accounts an amazing engineer and a genius producer, attributes that sometimes get overshadowed by his more widely publicised eccentricities. Peter Ballast met Derry Lannnn over a few drinks in NYCs East Village.
PB: So did he squirm a bit? It must have hurt.
DL: He’s a weak man… So… Yeah, the knees went.
PB: Where did you get the rake from?
DL: The gardener…
PB: Really? Wow.
DL: Yeah, they have a zen garden drum-booth there.
PB: Did that finish the session?
DL: No, I forced him to continue. It was costing us a fortune.
PB: And how long do you think he could have played if you hadn’t taken him to ER?
DL: Hard to say, really. The blood was pouring down his trouser legs. His pedals were shorting.
PB: Your stock is so high at the moment that bands will put up with never being able to play squash again just to work with you. That must feel great!
DL: It does, but don’t get me wrong when I say I hate it.
PB: Explain.
DL: I get to work and make a living, but I also have to get behind a… you know…
PB: A desk?
DL: Yeah.
PB: And?
DL: I can’t do anything else, so…
PB: Do you feel trapped?
DL: Yes.
PB: How did this start?
DL: You called my agent and we arranged to meet.
PB: No, the fear of desks.
DL: My father was killed by a falling rolltop.
PB: From the sky?
DL: From Ikea.
To Be Continued…
While most of Pitchzpork is championing the massive sounds of bands such as Superocean and California Jaguars, another altogether more contemplative subtle scene is bubbling away under music’s bubbly surface. Bubble. A new collection of artists heralding from the Baltic nations are insighting an altogether more quite riot.
Cue Frodo Suckling Mother Nature, a band so in-tune with the earth they need no instruments at all. The collective/cult believe in having no possessions and instead steal equipment from passing touring bands. They assemble sounds from such varied sources as the Pharaoh Ants marching across Led Zeppelin’s touring reverb chamber, and the mating squeals of the Rolling Stones small army of Chinchilla’s (they allegedly throw them through hotel windows these days). Mick was furious when he found out that his Chinchillas had been used in recording sessions without his permission and a court battle ensued. However Frodo Suckling Mother Nature have enough fans in their home country of Estonia to be classed as a religion and therefore could not be sued, further enraging Sir Mic. Frodo Suckling Mother Nature then released the highly controversial ode to Mick Hey You Get Off Of My Chinchilla to rapturous applause from their legion of fans (affectionley known as Dickciples).
Their new release Mother Natures Natural Blues pays homage to outside broadcasting with tiny rhythms, constructed by sampling and sequencing rare insects to form glitchy Mother Earthcore at almost inaudible levels. It requires the your sound system to be turned up to unusually high levels. This factor, although slightly annoying, ultimately makes the record as it was built to include the hiss your stereo makes at high volumes. Linear notes state that the hiss in question is F#m7dim9sus1 and that (quite amazingly) is the same note that bees make while full of honey. We find this out in a Spiritualized-esqe addition to the album: a bee slowly buzzing throughout the whole record. The notes add that although the bee is the closest thing to stereo hiss, they did have to put the bee in a tiny corset in order to raise the pitch by 1/1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 HrtZ to attain the perfect note. The results are astounding and this reviewer is selling up and moving into their compound as soon as he has sold the last of his belongings.
Here’s a list of belongings still to sell:
12500 Old School Rave Vinyl (list on demand)
Huge. Giant. Big. Tall. Skinny. Soy latte. All words to describe stuff. Here’s another: very large. Although the adverb kinda ruins the word (there’s two words – ed). I would rather have used massive instead of the two words ‘very large’ – massive means ‘very large’! You could use one word instead of the two – simplicity and economy is really important when writing. You need to get to the point elegantly. Unlike Superocean who take six hours and four discs to get to a kind of chorus. Sure, double-tracked vocals coo and warble throughout, but they go nowhere. Bloody nowhere. This album is an endless slab of intensity. Entire episodes of Diagnosis Murder plough miserably to their climaxes on my muted TV whilst this album plays. Like America, it’s big, stupid and created by racists. Superocean‘s race views are no secret, but why the hatred of mermaids? A race that doesn’t really exist. So tracks like Go Home Fish Legs intensity is lost in the incomprehension of it’s politics. But when it works, like on album centrepiece More Like A Fish, Less Like A Woman, it’s awe-inspiring.
If you like bands who’ve graduated out of Bradford’s geological rock scene. Bands such as Unusual Poltergeist, GoldSilverBronze and Massive Yellow Swell were collected by the scene generalissimo Graham Oxbow-Lake on the seminal compilation, GPS! OS! Motherf*ckers! (It’s hard to find now selling for £100 and upwards on Ebay) Superocean deserved their place on the compilation as worthy scene leaders. And now here is the debut album, a monolith of sound, a pickled fist of riffs. This record is like a asking for a punch and getting a 2×4. My ears are still ringing now.
Producer Derry Lannnn again overcomes his fear of desks to man the desk and man does he man it. The production is dripping with large dollops of music. Disgusting lumps of sound fall out of the speakers solidifying almost immediately on contact with the air. It’s more about managing to get the music to your ears before it forms into an aural yoghurt than a traditional listening experience. Less listening, more scooping handfuls of cymbals and snare rolls into your annoyed ears. The drums were recorded on tape then digitised then played to apes. After the apes had been taught the drum parts, they rerecorded them back onto tape before being, again, digitised and then finally thrown from a tall building into a small skip. All the drums are played by apes. I need say no more.
The Drums – The Drums
Oh wow! Its another shit band from Brooklyn I’m supposed to think are brilliant. When I read a review that states a band are from Brooklyn, New York (which is a veiled statement/threat meaning the band is immediately cooler than you could ever be) my eyes glaze over. Having looked around the Internet to find out about this band, I am met with every Brooklyn based reviewers, Brooklyn based thoughts, on Brooklyn based band The Drums.
My New York rage is simply defined, and I of course blame Sonic Youth entirely. How much longer will all bands, musician’s and artists from New York ride on their “getting on a bit’ coat tails?
I’m going to put it out there.
I think we should start a revolution against Sonic Youth. Burn effigies of that ‘Lanky Moore’. Create a cheap and nasty blow up sex doll of Kim Gordon and accidently on purpose insert razor blades into her (snip – Ed.). The possibilities are endless, however you must understand that I have nothing against Sonic Youth per sae, but they have created a Brooklyn based monster and this non-Brooklyn based reviewer is going to have to go to Brooklyn to slay it.
Back to Brooklyn based band The Drums though. This album is cack. Its so cack it was probably found in the left over slag mined from Cack Canyon on Uranus. In fact if reviews started with Cack Canyon based band The Drums, I think we would understand the record far quicker and far better and all without the need of listening to it.
Its not remotely inventive or original, just another take on new wave. What are we up to now? New wave of new wave of new wave of new wave?
I give this album a cup of the balls, a tug of the beard and a whisper in the ear to fuck off, though all in Brooklyn of course, it’ll be cooler.
The bastardised love child of reclusive navelwave maestro […] and MC Pikachu, legendry hypeman for Amsterdam ‘tardcore outfit Skullfunkerzzz, Zoink Donk! are the pioneering visionaries behind lint-rave. Who ever thought that you could mix ponedrone and whinging Brooklyn lyricisms with whistles, horns and glowstix? Fuck me gently with a chainsaw, I feel like the only cock in an all pussy gangbang right now.
Ripping off the Postal Service massively, Zoink Donk!’s twin players started a transatlantic back-and-forth of conjoined creativity, each writing exactly 32 bars of music at a time. The only proviso, it appears, was that each new segment had no similarities to the last. Records change tempo, key and production values with metronomic regularity – as hypnotic as it is cacophonic. The effect is like channel hopping between MTV stations, but with less cohesion. Where else could “My sneekers gleam the streets while smoke machines bleat like sheep,” meet “Raving crew…maxium…yeah…techno bass asylum,” with such tumultuous poetical abandon?
While […]’s distinctive technique of re-recording all music back to digital from vinyl he has pissed on (uri-wave anyone?), Pikachu just sticks a whopping 180bpm kick drum on everything and seemingly plays notes at random while shouting. When juxtaposed, the effect may cause nausea, seizures and, in extreme cases, even marital break ups.
Three thumbs up!
Reviewed by
Dr. Rhubarb Pistachio
Best New Music: Old Money – Poshzilla
Hampstead is not often thought of as a hot bed of musical activity but the recent emergence of trustafarian guffawcore outfits such as I Simply Must Have A Pony and Fa Fa Fa Fa Fa Fa! are certainly causing a commotion up on the heath. The latest addition to the scene is posh rockers Old Money.
This is their first official album and it seems only fit that it be released on the godfather of guffawcore, Lord Smith Smyth Smith’s independent label Room For A Pony Records, and was produced by none other than Hampstead’s own Caruthers Fairchild at the extremely expensive Faberge Studio.
The album makes use of expensive modern day field recording techniques to incorporate ‘every-day’ sounds such as James Hewitt’s ginger son cracking a spiffing good hit of the ball at the recent England vs United Arab Emirates polo friendly and front man Byron Chatterley burning 50 pound notes. In a recent interview Byron stated there was too much cheap sounding music being released. He went on to explain that advancements in computer recording were an abomination and allowing ‘just about any old rotter’ to record music was “simply not cricket”.
The music on the record clearly benefits from the high quality recording techniques employed in its making. Tracks like Cretin and Foie Gras jump out at the listener immediately making you feel like you need to call them sir or madam. Indeed by the end of the epic Holiday Where Ever I Want I was on my knees scrubbing the floor and willing to hold its cock for it while it pissed.
Powerful stuff.
Reviewed by miniGMgoit
The Minaretss – Vietghanistan Of The Soul
Along with Hitler & The Nasties, Slick Lizard, Alabama’s The Minaretss are the finest essayists of the git-wave sub genre of shit-wave. Mainly dealing with the themes of hate, self-hate and misanthropy, the album belts along at a fair pace. Over thirty songs in ten minutes. Live they’re even faster, sometimes leaving the audience trailing in their wake as they bundle, amps and all, into waiting taxis, door money burning holes in their studded leather bum bags. All of the hype over their infamous Mohammed gigs, where the band wore painter’s easel sandwich boards drawn with their now notorious portraits of Mohammed drawn by Mohammed. Self-portraits of the prophet. But they weren’t really drawn by Mohammed, they were drawn by drummer Slack Rodgers. In his shit and wee. It confused and enraged in equal measures. When all the dust settled around the confusion, all that was left was a shit-stack of shit-hot rage – and the band ran with it and ran away for a bit.
The Minarets disappeared in the hope of avoiding the fatwa but it was in vain. Lead singer Blue Gordon fell apart mentally under the strain of writing new material that would insult more people than just the Muslim community. But by God they’ve nearly done it. And it’s nearly all good. So here we find Gordon exploring the themes of cultural sensitivity. In songs like 1-2-3, God I’m Gonna Kill You, it works. But sadly songs in like Why Are You All Trying To Kill Me, Gordon’s earlier hubris gives way to extreme navel gazing and self-pitying. It doesn’t wash with the bands previous kick-ass attitude to everything. Something has changed. Blue Gordon’s head has gone wrong. But, luckily, from the deepest depths of Gordon’s misery we leap up into the mad rush of side two. Here the band really gel and the garage rock develops a teutonic, krautrock, Germanic edge. Motorik drums and slabs of guitar frame the songs bizarre subject matter. It’s simply breathtaking. Waaaaaaaaaah! Ye-ah! Mondah Is D.R.A.G.O.N Day is worth the admission alone. This is glorious. Watching a man unravel, watching a band hit their stride.
Reviewed by Peter Ballast.
Whatever ever happened to Mullet Conspiracy? The faux-German five piece’s 2001 debut, Nietzsche Is My Homeboy, was an odyssey of neo krautrock existentialism and Aryan prog soundscapes. Thom Yorke even proclaimed it the ‘best philosophy/prog album ever’, allegedly. Over the ensuing decade, enigmatic frontman Kaiser Wilhelm’s continuing problem with substance abuse have been well documented, and most of us thought it was auf wiedersehen for the Swansea wunderkinds (the less said about, lead guitarist, Umlaut’s solo attempts the better).
But with Das Mullet Cycle the, allegedly clean, ladyboys are back with a giddying display of artist pretension: a quadruple LP loosely inspired by Richard Wagner’s Teutonic uber-opera, Der Ring des Nibelungen. The first question to ask is ‘how?’ quickly followed by ‘why?’ These petty debates are soon banished as you immerse yourself into this masterpiece of polemic fantasy, and it soon becomes a whole load of ‘fuck yeah!’ Think R-Kelly’s Trapped in the Closet, but made by Sigur Ros.
Following the adventures of our transvestite hero, Frau Mullet, Das Mullet Cycle is a parabolic anti-autobiography of Wilhelm’s undiagnosed schizophrenia and gender displacement issues, rising to a deafening, discordant crescendo four-hours in with ‘Suck this Siegfried Freud, I’m a Valkyrie Now!’ and its extended saxoflute solo.
I demand a Glastonbury headline slot. I can see the valkryies over Pilton now.
Reviewed by Amadeus Hump
Best New Music: Duchess Wah Wah – Touch It
Duchess Wah Wah is a hot piece of ass. I’m telling you man, she’s got a rack and a half and legs that go AAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL the way up. The provocative album cover of this, her sophomore release could be the body of anyone but I like to pretend its hers.
I like to imagine that I am a miniature version of myself and have just signed a 12-month fixed-term lease on her body and am ready to move in to the soft folds pictured within the sleeve. I spend hours wondering how to arrange my furniture to ensure minimal discomfort to my host while still allowing me room to swing my miniature cat. I wonder if the bathroom has frosted glass protecting the Duchess from catching me mid crimp, or if it has a lock on the door to avoid any unpleasant or embarrassing incidents such as walking in on me at the vinegar strokes.
Who would I call to fix a leaky tap? Would she allow me to paint or does her auntie from Reading keep abreast on maintenance.
I despair however at her choice of well known gash hound Dickie Knee as producer and do a little sick burp when I think of him and his big greasy pie hands at the controls of her record, with me looking out of my kitchen window, between her tits, witnessing it all but not being able to kick his ass because I’m miniature.
All this is however speculation at the moment as my infinite army of monkey’s has yet to create a machine capable of shrinking me and my cat. Furthermore our solicitors have yet to reach an agreement regarding use and maintenance of the garden.
(Could you find it in your heart to mention the music next time please – Ed)
Reviewed by miniGMgoit
Ever since dubstep went over ground, I have prided myself on my ability to seriously hate on a music I once described as ‘like getting a blowjob from Baywatch-era Pamela Anderson and Knight Rider-era Hasselhoff simultaneously’. I mean, come the fuck on, do I really want to be associated with those grubby Croydon cockzillas that mince around Fabric on shitty pills and small bumps of ketamine?
I would rather vacuum-pack my face.
The Brixton-based producer E-Wok, however, defies my hating with his insect-inspired take on the genre I have christened grubstep. Lacing that distinctive two-step riddem with bassline samples of slugs being microwaved and LFO-freakery on album standout ‘Mollusc Wobble’ and an allegorical concept piece based on The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Enter the Des Lynam Apocalypse is a record that exists at the highest spectrum of audacity. Lets see those Kanye West-glasses-wearing fuckheads deal with the fifteen-minute homage to the praying mantis and its digestive system, ‘Mandibles’, or the frankly genius ‘David Bellamy Ate My Goat’ whilst tweeking on Plant Food.
Hahaha. Fuck you.
E-Wok‘s identity is a mystery. Speculation is that Burial is behind the Des Lynam mask. If he is it’s a poor attempt to regain his anonymity as we know who he is. Putting on a mask when your identity is known just makes you a twat in a mask.
Reviewed by Dr. Rhubarb Pistachio
