Binary Oppositions, by Various (CD on Static Caravan)

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…Because Opposites Attract

 

The finest music has always had an intrinsic relationship with art – whether it’s Andy Warhol’s patronage of the Velvet Underground; Pete Saville’s austere sleeve designs for Factory Records; or the artistic endeavours of the likes of Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel, Syd Barrett, Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart; there’s always been a symbiotic pact between audio and visual art forms.

 

New exhibition Binary Oppositions takes this idea and runs with it to explore polar concepts which somehow remain irrevocably linked. Curated by Matt Price for a new art gallery in Brescia, Italy, called Citric Gallery, it features ten visual artists living in Birmingham, scrutinising the impact of lo-fi culture in a hi-fi world. The works address the contrasting pairs of analogue and digital, nostalgia and newness, the hand-made and the industrially-produced, and the manual and the electric, through themes such as tradition and progress, myth and rationalism, folklore and technology, and history and modernity.

 

To accompany this exhibition Static Caravan is releasing a compilation album of music by bands based in Birmingham, intertwining with the key themes of the exhibition. A gallery edition album limited to 500 copies, these diametrically opposed concepts burst through the electronica and left-field pop grooves, fashioned by a select group of some of the city’s best and most forward-looking acts.

 

There’s a subtle ebb and flow which binds the 21 tracks, and the range of music locked within the Binary Oppositions album is as diverse as the cornucopia of art works it’s designed to complement. Swelling post-rock crescendos soar alongside synthetic bleeps and beats, while strange psychedelic patterns amble through a colour-rich haze, hand-in-hand with fragile folk-inspired tones and the cut-up, estranged reality of musique concrete.  

 

From the polyrhythmic drone jam of Broadcast’s Green Peter to the exotic, electro-infused sunshine pop of Seeland’s Torch; or from Mike In Mono’s Kraftwerkian robot knees-up on Almost Unreachable to the bonkers fairground whirl of The Long Conveyor Belt – courtesy of Misty’s Big Adventure – the album packs a plethora of disparate sounds and experiments from England’s second city. Elsewhere, other Brum-based luminaries are gripped by such dichotomous subjects, including indie-folk starlets Shady Bard as well as celebrated electronica mainstays such as Modified Toy Orchestra, Pram and Magnetophone.

 

Ben Javens from the Outcrowd collective has designed the album artwork and the exhibition catalogue, which have been printed, cut and hand-manufactured all in Birmingham. Due for release at the end of September, the album will be launched with a party at Vivid, Birmingham's leading media arts agency located near the city's Custard Factory - a hub of cutting-edge creativity, design and production. The launch event will also include live performances from…… There are plans to launch the album in Milan to coincide with the exhibition, putting Birmingham’s finest sonic adventurers firmly on the world map.

Helena Gough

A self-styled scavenger and collector, sound artist Helena Gough takes the rough-hewn template of musique concrete and twists it into increasingly beautiful and otherworldly shapes. Crackling and hissing in the right places, her compositions take everyday sounds and transform them into deconstructionist sonic sculptures, with every detail magnified to perfection.

 

Absent

Bubbling, skyscraping electronica is the order of the day for Absent, where glitches and skittering rhythms slip down easily with a grandiose feel. Building sparse yet layered atmospheres, this sits at the warmer, more engaging end of the electronica spectrum, but there’s a sinister nocturnal undercurrent all of its own.

 

Magnetophone

Blatantly disregarding conventions, the duo of Matt Huish Saunders and John Hanson have long been front-runners of Birmingham’s electronica scene. Often using traditional rock instruments – yet consistently flouting the idea of tradition – Magnetophone’s glistening electronica sits neatly with the sound of their former home, 4AD, but is recognisably their own.

 

Shady Bard

With a set-up incorporating violin, cello, French horn, piano and Casiotone, Shady Bard concoct an expansive blend of instrumentation and harmonies, dispatched with an endearingly scuffed charm. While the quintet share a pronounced lo-fi ethos, their dizzying folk-pop sounds as huge and heart-warming as the work of their musical forebears.

 

Arcade

Pitching circular melodies against glitches and hip-loosening beats, Arcade is the nom de plume of Gary Judge. Pursuing a brand of electronica that can still remain warm and natural at its core, Judge has shown just what can be done with a laptop if you put your mind to it.

 

Susan Dillane

Vocalist with slow-burning trio Woodbine, Susan Dillane’s feather-light coo is a lesson in melancholy. Emotive yet distant, her purring tones have an almost narcotic feel - apt for the airy brushstrokes accompanying her voice. Strangely beautiful and eerily detached, there’s a sense of love and isolation inherent to her performances.

 

Broadcast

Everyone’s favourite art-noir retro-futurists, Broadcast dabble equally in drone and melody with an unmistakable lightness of touch. An intergalactic treasure trove, their melodies scuttle along where other acts merely plod, and in Trish Keenan they possess a singer with an icy delivery which encompasses the conflicting moods of everyday life.

 

The Young Baron

Twinkling electronica dispatched with elegance and a certain poignancy too, The Young Baron is the alias of Matt Price. Musical Box builds upon myriad textures to conjure a magical sea of noises, all culminating in a gently lilting arrangement, which is firmly bolstered by the pneumatic rhythms which drive this gorgeous elegy.

 

Betty & the Id

A slice of flute-propelled psychedelic whimsy, Heath of Kings is a track from the quintet Betty & The Id. A glissando melody interlocks with analogue synths and the repeating patterns cultivated by the band hint at a nursery rhyme mantra, its weaving melodies helping to induce an almost trance-like state.

 

Seeland

Hypnotic, exotic and lots of other words ending in ‘…ic’, Seeland are Tim Felton (ex-Broadcast) and Billy Bainbridge (ex-Plone). Recalling Brian Eno’s rampant experimentalism and the sheer joie de vivre of Stereolab, this is bittersweet electronic pop with an avant-garde centre, tugging at your heartstrings as well as your synapses.

 

Micronormous

Filmic and spooky, Micronormous is the work of Matt Eaton of Pram, taking grainy lo-fi sounds into a brand-new setting. Like a spaghetti western soundtrack transplanted from the saloons of Sergio Leone’s landscapes and beamed into Moseley, there’s a distinct hint of Morricone lurking in the grooves on this offering.

 

Pram

Using a veritable array of instruments, Pram are prime exponents of the most minimal electronica, crafting subtle atmospheres from tones, drones and noises. It’s an eerie palette of sounds and one which is best listened to at night with the lights turned off, scaring yourself witless with their singular ruminations.

 

KateGoes

Idiosyncratic songs with the kitchen-sink drama found in all of the finest British song-writing, this five-piece are bristling with ideas and creativity. With a refreshing take on pop, they use squeaky toys and infuse their infectious vignettes with an arch sense of humour and gawky charm, winning over discerning ears.

 

Mike In Mono

Producing robotic pop par excellence, Mike Johnston (ex-Plone, member of Modified Toy Orchestra and ZX Spectrum Orchestra) is better known as Mike In Mono. He uses ancient synths and vocodered vocals to create a wonderland of electronic trickery, akin to Joe Meek working solely with a bank of battered Casios.

 

Modified Toy Orchestra

Modified Toy Orchestra is the brainchild of Brian Duffy, who uses circuit-bent toys and instruments to create a heady blend of electronic music and mutant pop. Often veering close to chaos, it’s nevertheless a measured sense of chaos and more fun than you can shake a manipulated Barbie doll at.

 

Grandmaster Gareth

Mixing odd discordant noises with field recordings and delightfully intriguing instrumentation, the work of Grandmaster Gareth – ringleader of Misty’s Big Adventure – is music for outsiders, parading around the fringes of the pop world by exploring the kind of space-age sounds which few other musicians could pull off with such panache.

 

Misty’s Big Adventure

The bouncy, schizoid pop of Misty’s Big Adventure is overflowing with energy and a fizzing intelligence. An eight-piece band with a raft of exciting horn-led compositions, they’re disarmingly playful with an overwhelmingly eclectic approach. Add in a few psychedelic touches and it’s enough to make you grin inanely for days.

 

Juneau/Projects/

Redefining the relationship between music and art, Phil Duckworth and Ben Sadler have been fusing weird and hitherto incompatible sounds into impressively constructed pieces. With their fondness for juxtaposition, it’s unsurprising to learn that they also work with children to make pop songs, in-keeping with their delicious predilection for contradiction.

 

Dreams of Tall Buildings

The scratchy ambience of Dreams of Tall Buildings is simultaneously frightening and enticing; defiantly minimalist and with an ominous atmosphere looming like a storm cloud hovering over a cartoon character’s head. Despite the impending doom that’s audible in the intensity of their brooding electronica, it’s never less than heart-stoppingly beautiful.

 

The Decapitated Barbershop

Sounding exactly like you might expect them to, the Decapitated Barbershop actually could be a barbershop quartet from a particularly unsettling horror film, via one of the more off-the-wall Peter Sellers sketches. With tongues firmly inside cheeks, this is music which is by sharp contrast both terrifying and extremely playful.

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