Churinga Canaries

Our review
Customer reviews
Press release

4...according to our Phil on Thu 02 Apr, 2009.

There's a big ole bunch on releases on the Qbico label this week which is always an exciting prospect (depending on your point of opinion I guess). This new stack of releases (5 in total) centres around the UK music scene and predominantly the Leeds music scene. Which is nice for me cos I'm from Leeds and we're based in Leeds. I almost feel like they're about me and everyone I know. You may have thought Leeds was all about the Kaiser Chiefs, Forward Russia and the Sisters of Mercy but we have a burgeoning experimental scene here. Churinga Canaries is a supergroup of sorts featuring Phil Todd (Ashtray Navigations) Alex Neilson (worked with everyone and their dog), Tirath Singh Nirmala (who is John Clyde Evans who has played Hood amongst other folks) and Phil Legard (who plays in the Neon Death Slittes amongst others). Anyhoo this limited self-titled album is somewhat of a noisy affair. A huge sprawling free flowing jam which sounds like the band are falling over themsleves. At times it's thoroughly coherent and I can hear occasional echoes of Michael Karoli's (Can) more jammy moments in the guitars. Otherwise it just sounds like what it is and that's a huge collapsing psych jazz rock jam of instruments which oozes power and will leave you wanting a pint of some fine local mead (which is what I want right now). I've quite possibly over indulged on the use of parenthesis in this review but I do enjoy a good pair of informative brackets.

Phil Legard, Alexander Neilson, Tirath Singh Nirmala, Phil Todd

rec. in Leeds, December 2005

originally released as a CD-R, 100 copies only

side A
Under heavy rent

side B
A sovtek swirl

"Collaborations can be a hell of a gamble. Fortunately, it seems that in the world of the underground music lover, collaborative ventures always seem to turn out to be synergetic exercises that yield amazing results. Churinga Canaries is such an endeavour: a one-off group effort improvised by four of the brightest lights in the UK underground music dog-and-pony show. A rundown of the participants should be more than enough to cause many of you to drool with excitement. Phil Legard (Xenis Emputae Travelling Band), Alex Neilson (Scatter, Richard Youngs collaborator, etc.), Tirath Singh Nirmala (formerly John Clyde-Evans of Hood) and Phil Todd (Ashtray Navigations) assembled in Leeds in chilly December 2005 to bang out some noise and melt the ice right out from under themselves with a warm bowl of sonic porridge. The results are two stunning long-form tracks of joyful jazz-inflected psych-noise in the vein of some of the wilder Ash Nav moments. Neilson's propulsive yet amazingly free drumming serves as the perfect background for the virtual maelstrom conjured up by the other three improvisers. About five minutes into the leading track, Under Heavy Rent, the sound is so dense and chaotic that it's almost dizzying. The foursome manage to keep themselves and their sound from breaking apart into a million tiny pieces, but just barely. A Sovtek Swirl starts off subdued, with a recurring thematic element gluing the shards of our dumbstruck minds back together again. By the time the disc is finished however, you'll be left panting in a useless heap on the floor. This is powerful stuff, not to be taken lightly. Don't say I didn't warn you!!" review of the CD-R by Byron Hayes from July 2006 (Foxy Digitalis)

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