TRACKLIST
Cocteau Twins – Lazy Calm
The Marx Trukker – Not Quite A Fear
John Roberts – Shoes
Deadbeat – D1 Minus fourty Madness
Appleblim and October – Fountains of Paradise
Moritz Von Oswald Trio – Pattern 4
Aswad – Mikaflame
Black Uhuru – African Dub
Mad Professor – Claps Like Thunder
The Orb feat. Lee Scratch Perry – Ball Of Fire DABRYE Remix
Boozoo Bajou – Kodiak
Lee Konitz – Five, Four and Three
Mulatu Astatke & The Heliocentrics – Phantom Of The Panther
Archie Pelago – Nancy’s Library
Omni Trio – Radio Sirus
Omar – The Man
The 24-Carat Black – Ghetto: Misfortune’s Wealth
Bohannon – Save Their Souls
Hildegarde Knef – Im 80 Stockwerk
DJ Vadim – Saskatoon feat. Young Blood Brass Band
The Sonic Aesthetic – New Districts
Theo Parrish – Sweet Sticky
Herzel – Brown Paper Bag (The Marx Trukkers Balearic Drumshape)
Benjamin Brunn – Queen Mary
M.S.S.S – It’s My Cousin’s
Vester Koza – Out Of The Blue
Mr. Tophat & Art Alfie – Kamerun 3000
Solu Music – Afrika (Utuku Mix)
Move D – Wanna D
Omar S – The Shit Baby
Lorca – Searching
Graze – Cathode Bias
Pablo Tarno & Anthony Constans – Blockbuster (Tolga Fidan Remix)
Neneh Cherry + Afrika Baby Bam – Nina
RN9 – Rotunda (Four Tet refix)
Orgue Electronique feat Robert Owens – Our House (Kink & Neville Watson Remix)
October – String Theory (Legowelt Remix)
LTD – Love To The World

‘Februum’ was written in response to the RPM challenge and in all honesty its so good that, if I had the money, I would be pressing CD’s or vinyl or something whilst attempting to teach him some hybrid Gangnam Style influenced dance moves for the promo video. Sadly for Iain, who I’m sure cuts a decent rug, I’m skint, as is he by the sound it.

The Album follows Iain as he adventures through perhaps the gloomiest month on record kicking off with the symbolic ‘Cold Metal Frame’.
It’s absurdly optimistic and warm country style chord progressions punctuated nicely by some suitable cheapo Casiotone style keyboard bits reflect perfectly the deluded sense optimism I always seem to get at the end of January before the realisation sets in; ‘it aint over yet’.

The title track manages to sum up my most hated of months perfectly in 1 minute and 41 seconds, with Iain cheerfully singing great lines like

“Its a hard frost, if you’re Macedonian or Ukranian,
or a month of no money or heating if you are me”.

The whole album is glued together with some great experimental ambient things too such as ‘Big Yoghurt and the Emergency Services’ and ‘The Washing’.

The other highlight, for me, is the hilariously idle ‘Disco Fever’ with it’s faux-electro-disco stylings and Iain claiming to be in a “Disco Trance”, lazily ordering the listener to “Get up and Dance”, while sounding as if he’s wrapped in four blankets and lying on the couch; remote control in hand.

This strain of Self-deprecating humour runs through so much of Iain’s music. It’s really the thing I love most and can be found equally in both the lyrics and the arrangement. At least that’s my slant on it. If you like Tunng, Syd Barrett and earlier Pulp records you will simply love this and should pay the man for this masterstroke!

herein lies the music ….

I won’t go into all the promo blurb because as usual I put the pdf in the bin, so I know nothing of the man with regard to his personality or his struggles, which in all honesty I would prefer. I do however have two biographical morsels for you to chew on, they are as follows.. His real name is Ralph Schmidt and he lives in Berlin, it all adds to the mystery I suppose.

The funny thing about ‘Offseason Traveller’, as with most of Aera’s stuff is it smacks of music that I’m often heard slating, such as (minimal) Techno, Trance and even some distinctly Coki-fied bassline oscillations (lord have mercy) but the amazing thing, at least in my opinion, is that he pulls it off! And not only pulls it off but makes an intense and highly enjoyable musical journey out of it too. Although I love it, Dance music is fickle and has a short shelf-life. Artists and labels are always running the risk of being cheesy in a year or two and what’s more there aren’t many good albums; ‘Offseason Traveller’ however is most certainly a good album, possibly even a great one.

The most striking thing about the whole affair is the ease with which Herr Schmidt twists and turns through styles and speeds without ever losing the flow. From the foundations laid down by ‘Kiss Off’ and ‘Baby-Comet-Face’ through to the off-kilter Balearic-ey sounding ‘Fever Beach’ with its honey dripping 80’s porn sax samples, complete with troughs and peaks that wouldn’t seem out of place on a Vangelis album, climbing right up to the 140plus bpm metronomic attack of ‘Chevere’ and dropping right back down the other side of the mountain through a series of beautiful melodic techno pieces before being slowly dipped into the lullaby dream sequence of ‘By the Red Lake’

all in all a release to be proud of and if you don’t believe me, he’s only been nice enough to up clips of the whole thing, ohhh what a lovely lad.

With ‘Seabed’ Vondelpark have managed to combine a fairly wide spectrum of sounds and influences ranging from the shoegazing Ballads of the Cocteau Twins to the Jangly Mock-Balearic Indie of the Boat Club, underpinned with subtle 2 Step and Hip Hop Rhythms and awash with fuzz, reverb and delays. More amazingly though, somehow they have managed to rein it all in to create something experimental but with the consistency of a good solid pop album.

Highlights for me include ‘Come On’ which lends a line from The Cure’s ‘In Between Days’ and fuses some very odd albeit subtle Radiophonic Workshop style sequences with blissed out guitars and and vocal samples that make the whole thing sound like a pitched down version of ‘Moments In Love’ by The Art of Noise, and the dreamy dance that is Bananas (On My Biceps) with its climbing Garage Shuffle and ghostly pitched up Aretha sample drifting up and over the matted layers of pads and fuzz.

Steve Reich – Section VII
Stereolab – Percolator
Mohammad – Lapli
Plaid – Fer
JJDoom – ‘Ello Guvnor
Fingathing – You Fly Me
Lee Gamble – Overund
Roll the Dice meets Pole – Calling Dub Workers
Tobias Rüffler – Urben
Kyson – Remi
Chakk – Years I Worked
Bering Strait – Journey
Credit To The Nation – Pressure
Lootbeg – Acd3
Inter – Function
KH – Text022
Theo Parrish – Dance Sing
LCD Soundsystem – 45:33 (Runaway Remix)
DJ Sprinkles – House is Controllable Desire You Can Own
LFO – Love Is The Message
James Cook – Staten 20/20
The Cutler – Clam Bake
Urban Dub Feat Fairshare Unity Sound – The Long Throw Specialist’s Version
Iration Steppas – Africa
Mala – Ghost
Shackleton – Hackney Marshes
Robert Wyatt – Sea Song

Digital Mystikz – Livin Different
Cabaret Voltaire – On Every Other Street
Cannibal Ox – Straight off the D.I.C
LTJ Bukem – View Point
Tosca – Rondo Acapricio
Baby Mammoth – Slipping Jigsaws
Tobias Rüffler – Things
Blue Fields – Carmen’s Ghost
Space Dimension Controller – The Love Quadrant
Tunng – Shove It
Caribou – Hannibal
Will Saul & October – Light Sleeper
Pantha Du Prince – Es Schneit
Mock & Toof – Move Along
Borai – Does It Bother You?
Grown Folk – The Boat (Gerd’s Re-Work)
Midland – Trace
Patrice Scott – M.F.D.T
Unforscene – Minus
My Bloody Valentine – Is The and Yes
Dauwd – Aqueous
Tony Ollivierra – Prophetic Light
Luke Vibert – Square Footage