Shriekback

Repository for All Things Shriek. Official Tumblr is http://shriekbackmusic.tumblr.com Twitter: @shriekbackmusic Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shriekback Join their mailing list here, for free goodies: http://shriekback.com Bring your friends, family, pets, graven images, and signed release forms.

[naplestan]

#pot8ers #pot8osh3d #flashforgecreatorpro #3dliveshow #ukperiscopers #phonecase #shriekback Can you guess what’s being printed? #periscope @pot8osh3d (at London, United Kingdom)

[shriekbackmusic]

Be Here Tinnitus Interviewed Us

Listen here! http://beheretinnitus.podomatic.com/entry/2016-02-21T19_59_30-08_00

[triopse-deactivated20160815]

Kind of theme song for Malczik - ‘Nemesis’ from Shriekback.

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[shriekbackmusic]

Enjoy the old press photos!

[shriekbackmusic]

MasterBAG Newsbag - Tench

“The fact that it isn’t breaking its back to be anything is quite liberating,” says Barry Andrews, pondering over the music he’s currently making with Shriekback. “It’s what it is – individuality is quite refreshing. Like those old guys who walk down Oxford Street carrying banners saying ‘stop eating peanuts’. It makes you feel good about people.”

Specifically, he means a new single called “Sexthinkone” and a mini-LP labeled “Tench”. Both are on Dick O’Dell’s Y Records, and both their sound and the manner of their making suggest something a little bit out of the ordinary.

There’s the basic nucleus of Shriekback, for a start. It’s a trio – Barry Andrews, Gang of Four’s former bassist Dave Allen and guitarist Carl Marsh, who used to be with Out on Blue Six. On top of these three, any number of friends and accomplices might drop by the studio to help out. “Sexthinkone” itself features departed member Brian Nevill on percussion, plus Linda Nevill and Andrea Oliver on vocals, a strange character allegedly called Carlo Lucius Asciutti on piano and xylophone and Dick O’Dell himself on “paperweight and claptrap of death”.

Dave Allen, who talks most, backtracks. “What I wanted to do was get together a loose collective of people where you would maintain a sort of unit, but it wouldn’t ever be a band. It would come out with a lot of material that would involve a lot of people that you wouldn’t necessarily keep on.

"We’ve got to the point where the three of us now work together very well and very easily, and this is the unit. Now we just invite people down who we think would be suitable to perform on our tracks, so it’s like a very loose collective with Shriekback as the sort of mentors and producers.”

Andrews – who used to be with XTC – and Allen both shudder when they think back on their days with big groups on major labels. Both loathed the duhumanising process of touring, and both now find it incredible to think back on the thoughtlessness with which groups are sucked into the ponderous mechanisms of “rock’n’roll” and its attendant money-wasting potential.

Andrews: “I hesitate to use the word ‘decadent’, but that’s what it is. Working with Y means a lot more work on our part, like we actually have to do a lot of stuff like artwork and looking after day to day logistics ourselves, but it also means you know who’s responsible for what and things don’t keep getting passed round offices.”

Carl Marsh chips in: “If a group like this had been involved in a major label it’s possible it wouldn’t have survived the process, because there’s so many pigeonholes you’re supposed to fit into.”

For example, the “Tench” LP contains some 26 minutes’ worth of music and retails at £2.99. “People can afford £2.99,” says Dave Allen. “Skidoo proved it. There’s just no reason to put out 10 or 12 tracks, four of which you don’t really like, and sell it for £4.50 because the record company want to get its money back.”

Shriekback have kept operating costs to a minimum by seeking out various small, cheap London studios, and recorded “Tench” at KPM, a 16 track demo studio owned by their music publishers EMI Publishing. It had never occurred to anybody before to make records there, but as the Shrieks point out, there simply isn’t any good reason to spend £50 and upwards an hour in a big-name studio when you can achieve excellent results at a third of that cost.

And the music? As Andrews points out, it’s my job to label it, not his, but I’m at a loss for some glib handle to attach to it. How can you describe the ominous stalking of “Mothloop”, or the curious obliqueness of “All the Greekboys (Do The Handwalk)”? The photograph on the label of “Tench”, by the way , inspired the latter song. “I think he’s probably Turkish, but it didn’t scan,” confides Andrews.

But mark my words, there may be a new force in the land.

Adam Sweeting Masterbag July 8-21 1982

Tench has been reissued and remastered, with additional tracks and a bonus CD of the never-before-released 1983 Detroit concert.  You can purchase this via our store on Burning Shed.  Order before 1 September, and you will also receive the Shriek/Thee Caretakers collaborative effort free!

[vinylfromthevault]

Shriekback “Big Night Music” 1986, Island Records, their fourth full length LP release. The back cover states “Shriekback celebrate the blessed dark - the place where they were always most at home.” I would say it is definitely not as dark as their earlier releases, however – including delightful sounds of castanets and maracas in “Gunning for the Buddha” and a horn section of trumpet, trombone and tenor sax (and “an army of hateful quicas”) giving a decidedly jazz flavor on “Black Light Trap.” 

That said, vocally and lyrically Shriekback remain masters of weaving a tapestry of forbidding and shadowy secrets. “Pretty Little Things” seems to indirectly reference “Faded Flowers” from their “Oil and Gold” LP (“Complicated as a flower, glamorous as anything, Dangerous and evanescent, yes oh yes those pretty things…”) yet musically is much perkier (marimbas!). One of my favorite things about Shriekback is their ability to sneak in science – and rhyme it! From “Oil and Gold,” of course, “Nemesis” mentions parthenogenesis, and on this release’s Side B we have “The Reptiles and I” – 

Chromium, radium, nickel, iridium

gold and actinium

Arsenic, plutonium, neon,

molybdenum, zinc, iodine

Braking the elements

The reptiles and I…

[vinylfromthevault]

Shriekback “Big Night Music” 1986, Island Records, their fourth full length LP release. The back cover states “Shriekback celebrate the blessed dark - the place where they were always most at home.” I would say it is definitely not as dark as their earlier releases, however – including delightful sounds of castanets and maracas in “Gunning for the Buddha” and a horn section of trumpet, trombone and tenor sax (and “an army of hateful quicas”) giving a decidedly jazz flavor on “Black Light Trap.” 

That said, vocally and lyrically Shriekback remain masters of weaving a tapestry of forbidding and shadowy secrets. “Pretty Little Things” seems to indirectly reference “Faded Flowers” from their “Oil and Gold” LP (“Complicated as a flower, glamorous as anything, Dangerous and evanescent, yes oh yes those pretty things…”) yet musically is much perkier (marimbas!). One of my favorite things about Shriekback is their ability to sneak in science – and rhyme it! From “Oil and Gold,” of course, “Nemesis” mentions parthenogenesis, and on this release’s Side B we have “The Reptiles and I” – 

Chromium, radium, nickel, iridium

gold and actinium

Arsenic, plutonium, neon,

molybdenum, zinc, iodine

Braking the elements

The reptiles and I…

[shriekback]

They have a new album out, too, in case you didn’t know.

[shriekbackmusic]

Cut bait by Jason Pettigrew ~ Alternative Press, February 1993

The other day I took my mother out to dinner. As she looked through the menu, she called my attention to the steak and fish combo, mentioning that the way the fried fish portions were laid out in the photo, they looked like...

[shriekbackmusic]

Throwback Thursday finds us posting a 14-year-old interview.

Some time ago, we were pleasantly surprised to find ourselves in contact with Barry Andrews via the Internet. He further astonished us by agreeing to an Interview! So, with an abundance of fan input, we put together a “small...

[shriekback]

Are you planning a tour again? The Netherlands would be a perfect start!

Unfortunately, the hurdles for that to happen are currently insurmountable, but never say never.  How many of us thought ‘Go Bang’ would be their last album?  And here we are with seven more records since ‘Go Bang’, with Album 14 being recorded as we speak.

So, don’t hold your breath for a tour, but don’t banish it from the realm of possibilities.  In a parallel reality, our quantum selves are probably at a Shriek concert right now.  That should give us more incentive to crank CERN up to full blast, don’t you think?

[shriekbackmusic]

Happy Throwback Thursday!  

Today, we’re going back to 2001, when Dave Allen fielded questions from the fans.

1) How did you get into music? By deciding that my options were limited to a bleak and dull existence in a small working class town in the North of England or clamoring for greater glory on the heady stages of the rock world pounding the living daylights out of bass guitar. Somehow the latter seemed more fun.

2) What were your first bands like? I cut my chops playing in a jazz band playing standards. The band was called Bob Dawbarn’s Elastic Band due to the flexibility of the line-up at any given performance.

3) Who were your early influences? Bob Marley, Jaco Pastorius.

4) Did you sing any songs with the Gang Of Four? Yes, on “He’d Send in the Army” immortalized on celluloid in the movie “Urgh! A Movie War.”

5) How did you meet Sara Lee? Was it she who introduced you to Barry Andrews? I met Sara in Leeds, Gang of Four’s home base. I met Barry when I went to see a League of Gentlemen show in Leeds and I believe Robert Fripp and Barry came back to the Gang of Four homestead to drink heavily and to discuss Fripp’s participation in orgies when he played Leeds with King Crimson. Fripp spent the whole night hitting on my girlfriend but I have to admit she spent the whole night wandering around soaking wet wrapped in a towel so who could blame him?

6) How did you meet Carl Marsh and Martyn Barker? Carl responded to an article he read in the music press about my leaving the G of 4. He came to visit me at my place in Brixton, London. We hit it off and the rest as they say is history…. Martyn came along later. Barry had spotted him playing in a band somewhere in London and decided that he was the powerhouse drummer that mighty Shrieks had been looking for without really knowing it.

7) Explain the meaning of the original name ‘Shriekback Concentrate.’ Er, why??

8) How did you feel about using drum machines and tape loops as half the rhythm section in the early days? It was thrilling, especially seeing the twenty foot long tape loops making their way around various mike stands and other smooth implements in the studio. Commandeered by the mighty Captain Caple of course….

9) How did you approach the 'Experimental Art’ feel of the early live shows? It sometimes seemed like you really had to hold the music together. The early shows seemed to be more about proving that the Shriekback space ship could hover. When we realized that the joystick actually operated the craft we left this dimension for greater glories elsewhere…..

10) What were your favorite songs to perform live? All of 'em…

11) Any favorite all-time Shriek songs, or a favorite album? Hubris, Evaporation, Fish Below the Ice all stand out. Care was my fave album.

12) What are your least favorite Shriek songs? I believe White Out still bugs the fuck out of me but I don’t know why.

13) What other arts do you work in? Underwater Masturbatory Techniques and journalism.

14) What musician(s), living or dead, would you love to work with? I wouldn’t mind whacking the bass to some of those Radiohead grooves right now.

15) Could we talk about what happened with 'Go Bang’? I wasn’t there.

16) What led you to form World Domination Records? See answer to 13. The failure of UMT to provide the food on the table for my new family pushed me toward forming a label to indulge my particular tastes in music.

17) Why is World Dom on hold for now? Because it too failed to put the food on the table. Bad, bad label.

18) Ever been any talk on getting Gang Of Four back together? What would the music be like, 20+ years later? LOL!!

19) How has having a family changed your role in the music industry? Well, it makes you look long and hard at the pros and cons of touring, especially long tours that mean you don’t get to hang out with your family for long periods of time. That doesn’t seem to be very healthy for relationships although having said that I feel confident that my relationship with my family is robust enough to weather a storm or two. I just have to refrain from bringing home the sex dwarves every other weekend. As for the music industry I have a strange relationship with that right now. It is a very old fashioned model that is refusing to budge and remains bloody-minded in the face of a technological juggernaut. I believe the musicians’ role today is to concentrate on live performance, harnessing the organic, pulsing beats and then distributing them virally over the Internet. Let’s fuck with the model as in this instance it’s not a matter of “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” as I believe the fissures have begun to appear and it might not take much to push it over the edge. By the way, did I mention I own a Rottweiler?

20) When did you get into tattoos? Or when did tattoos get into me? Circa 1984/85 I believe.

21) What did you think of Naked Apes & Pond Life? What do you think of Simon Edwards’ work? I’ve not spent enough time with this album but I remember thinking on first listening to it how good it sounded sonically.

22) Do you see a rise in Shriekback’s popularity? How about your other bands? Are you suggesting that our popularity plummeted somewhere along the way? Crimeny!

23) What have you been doing since World Dom shut down? I refer you to question 13.

24) Are you looking forward to working with Shriekback again? Yes I am, who’s asking?

25) How, if at all, will your role in the band change? Are you going to sing? Enough with the questioning already! Oy vey!

26) Will Shriekback tour again? Would you consider using any Elastic Purejoy material in the live shows? See above…

27) Would you ever want to live in England again? Part time, yes. I’m digging the Northwest USA right now.

28) Are you working on any music now? Yes.

29) What music do you listen to? Ok, you asked for it - in no particular order - Boards of Canada, Radiohead, Tricky, Bjork, Plaid, St Germain, Nils Petter Molvaer, Julien Lourau, Esbjorn Svensson Trio, Thievery Corporation, Mogwai, Gorillaz, tons of Drum 'n’ Bass, mucho jazz, Emmylou Harris, trip hop for days, Tracker, Tool, Moby, Massive Attack, East Flatbush Project, Dj Krush, Z-Trip, This Heat, At the Drive-in - I could go on……

30) THE FACT BASS: Could you give us a little history on it? Why “FACT”? Why not? Where is it now? In Q-Burns Abstract Message’s studio in Orlando, Florida and soon to be on its way via UPS to my home in the woods in Oregon.

31) What would you like to see happen at Shriekback.com? I have one word for you - MOULA!

32) On a new Chameleons UK album breaking a 15 year silence, there is an indication that “Dave Allen”, same producer of their '86 album Strange Times, has been used again. Is this you, and if so, can you tell us a little about it? Who they? Ed.

33) What about the vibrating tree? Can you tell us anything about this device? What that? Ed.

34) (from Barry A.) Why are you such a big toss? Ahem, something to do with my shoe size perhaps??

28 June, 2001

[xredx]

Shriekback - Recessive Jean

[shriekback]

This song is on their new album, Without Real String or Fish.  You can obtain that, and much more fantastic Shriek music at Shriekback.com.

[smutek]

[unreliable-external]

5 bands that need more love on this website IMHO:

1. The Church

2. Concrete Blonde

3. Saint Etienne

4. Shriekback

5. The Sound

Feel free to add your own

[shriekbackmusic]

(Carl Marsh) As has been documented elsewhere, the recording of Tench was an extended experiment full of dead ends and trial and error, more about inventing Shriekback from a standing start than actually making a record. With the firm assembled, the next caper was a pushover: Care came together...

[shriekbackmusic]

(Barry Andrews) Jam Science: some scenes behind the scenes also some technical stuff for them as cares and introducing the Digital Rasta:

We started recording with Ian Caple at Regents Park studios -which was also, interestingly, the HQ of Gary Glitter’s management/fan club. They let us use their...

[shriekbackmusic]

Jam Science sleeve notes general intro:

Jam Science is Shriekback’s third studio album (after Tench and Care and before Oil and Gold). It’s unusual in that it is comprised of all Carl Marsh tunes (apart from Hubris) and for having no real drums on it (Martyn Barker was a hired gun at this stage and was confined to live performance duties). So it’s a kind of Yang to Big Night Music’s entirely non-sequenced Yin, if you will. It was a conscious attempt to do something dancy and commercial (Yeah, yeah, God has a right old chortle when you make plans) which we started with Y Records, exhausting their budget and and recommencing once we’d signed to Arista.  Y released an unmixed, half finished version of it, no doubt to try and claw some more dosh back, which we were not best pleased by but loftily ignored, concentrating on finishing the actual album properly.  Which we went on to do.

The extras included here are the two which only came out on the bootleg (Pressure and International), Nerve -the B-side to Hand on my Heart- and two demos which never made it to either album (Carrying Cameras and Big Sharp Teeth). Also, there are 3 remixes of Hand on my Heart by Groucho Smykle and Adrian Sherwood.

The companion album included in this package is a live recording made at Hatfield Poytechnic on October 23rd 1984 (I think on the Rolling Stones Mobile). The band is:  Barry, Carl, Dave, Mart and Lu Edmonds on guitar and keys.