Brighton-based audiovisual event The Outer Church decamps to Dublin for a night of uncanny sound and vision this Saturday August 25 at Subground 43. The event will include live sets from Pye Corner Audio, Black Mountain Transmitter and Kemper Norton plus a screening of director Graham Reznick’s acclaimed psychedelic campfire tale I Can See You.
In anticipation of the event, programmed as part of the Darklight film festival, The Outer Church’s Joseph Stannard compiled a suitably unheimlich playlist with a few accompanying words…
Broadcast – Pendulum
Without Broadcast, the Outer Church would not exist. Each of their songs, let alone albums, is a miniature universe bursting with magic and creativity. Everything and always.
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Position Normal – Bucket Wipe
The first artist to play live at The Outer Church, Chris Bailiff is an unrepeatable one-off and a true gent to boot. This instrumental brings to mind an episode of children’s TV programme Pigeon Street in which a UFO zipped about over the titular urban thoroughfare to the wonder and delight of the animated locals. In 1999 ‘Bucket Wipe’ was included on the soundtrack of UK rave flick Human Traffic, which is quite odd if you think about it. Or even if you don’t.
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Boards Of Canada – Aquarius (Version 3)
Whether they like it or not, Boards Of Canada set the standard by which all subsequent occult electronic music is judged. “Nobody does it better,” as Carly Simon once sang about someone else. This track in particular – specifically the version from the Peel Session EP – makes me feel like I’m being brainwashed into cult membership. Orange? Yeah, that’s right.
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Mount Vernon Arts Lab – Scooby Don’t
Go ahead and file Scottish experimental composer Drew Mulholland under ‘Doing This Kind Of Thing When Nobody Had A Name For It’. A formidably inventive musician and conceptualist who, like Broadcast, was several years ahead of the retrofuturist curve (figure that one out). Get everything he’s ever done – if you can find it – especially the ominous Warminster collaboration with Portishead’s Adrian Utley.
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Kate Bush – Experiment IV
Plenty of people think Kate is weird when of course she is actually Weird. Here the rightful Queen of England channels Nigel ‘Quatermass’ Kneale for a chilling tale about top secret military research into Infrasonic Weapons. ‘Experiment IV’ was released as a single in October 1986 – four days before Samhain – and was accompanied by one of the greatest pop promos ever produced, starring Dawn French, Lionel Jeffries and Hugh ‘Haunted House’ Laurie. Shhh…
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Grouper – Alien Observer
The Outer Church recognises Liz Harris as a fellow traveller.
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Thomas Dolby – Cloudburst At Shingle Street
No one else in 80s synthpop – Numan and Foxx included – ever released an album as thematically consistent and downright inspired as Thomas Dolby’s debut The Golden Age Of Wireless (1982). With this record, Dolby built a credible alternate world populated by believable characters. He also demonstrated an adeptness in capturing the spirit of a particular location: ‘Cloudburst At Shingle Street’ uses a storm as an existential metaphor, triggering an emotional catharsis before leaving the listener soaked to the skin and gazing out at the concrete ruins of WWII sea defences beneath a brooding East Anglian sky.
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Odd Nosdam – Untitled #3
Featuring another of our living spirit guides, the wonderful Jessica Bailiff.
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Pye Corner Audio – We Have Visitors
I’ll be straight with you, Pye Corner Audio’s music creeps me out. There’s something discomfiting about the glassy melodies, the metronomic rhythms, the layers of tape murk encasing each track. The Head Technician will tell you he’s merely performing an act of recovery, cleaning up found tape recordings to the best of his ability and presenting them to the public without pretense. Yet surely he must be aware of the effects these recordings have on the unsuspecting listener? It’s just not right.
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