Look Homeward

Yippe!! WHERE ARE THE GAZELLES?!
What gazelles, the shoes? NO. The animal that looks like a horse? NO, THAT'S A ZEBRA! What then? WELL, THE GAZELLES!! Don't know...

God I hated world music then, in the mid-80s, and I guess I only started to appreciate it when it became simply Music. I didn't want an exotic landscape, what I was really craving was a gut-stinking city. To this day I still can't listen to Paul Simon. Paul 'shitty' Simon. I'm only swearing because you can't say you don't care much about Graceland to an english folk without having them staring at you as if you'd just told them you had a fling with Postman Pat. And their dad. It's like snatching their Hovis moment.

 Anyway, back to Lizzy. Little French new wave girl goes to New York and hangs out with Patti Smith and Richard Hell. Her and her partner (Michel Esteban, later from ZE Records) form Rosa Yemen. They sound pretty much like early Sonic Youth, same time tho. They disband and her first solo album Press Color is out in 1979. For her second album she flies to the Bahamas and gets a taste for African sonorities. Ensues a trip round Africa, and a return to France where she has a hit with her single Où Sont Passées les Gazelles? in 1984. Then on to London, recording her last album with Mark Cunningham, member of the New York band Mars.

She died from cancer in Corsica, aged 47. It was in 2004.


Bonus track, Mars - 11,000 Volts


picture, Lizzy Mercier Descloux with Chet Baker when they recorded One for the Soul in Brazil in 1986

Who is Treplec?

Treplec, Treplec. Treplec real name is Nils Scheibe and is behind Milnor Modern Records (according to Discogs). So I went on the label's website and discovered his biography. The english version is somewhat experimental (can't yet read german, but let me know if the original version is any different).
This is my summary: Nils is German, from Dessau, Saxony-Anhalt. [I'll pass on the story about schoolgirls and orgasms] In 1998, with the help of a few DJ friends, he started organising club nights in a basement (of a club I guess) before moving to the Global Village in Elbufer. It's working for him so 5 years later he founds his own label Milnor Modern (Milnor could have to do with John Milnor, a mathematician who worked on differential topology, K-theory and dynamical systems. But probably not. This is my own Wikipedia guess).
He self-produced some of his albums and collaborated with Shatterhand Andre Koener "and then blablabla, he does some amazing music with his computer and puts together epic DJ-sets" [my quote].

So there it is, go on Milnor Modern's website, the artists they release are something close to perfection if you like a bit of experimental/extremely-danceable minimal techno. The Suffragettes are even better than anything Sub Rosa vs Kompakt has produced. I can't describe how excited I am [I wish I could].

Go and buy all their records (can't bloody find Treplec's The Moon Doesn't Exist in physical form and that's a crying shame), book all their events and keep the label going before it's too late.
Most of their artists are on Spotify


Treplec - Orsi Schreck (2006)
The Suffragettes - Chokou (2007)
Mathias Schaffhäuser and Xhin's Imperial Sauce remix by Treplec was on our January 2012 mixtape Dial a Crow

Who Is Cyrus Faryar?

Well, Cyrus Faryar is the bouzouk player on the experimental Cynicrustpetefredjohn Raga on Fred Neil's eponymous album from 1969. He was also a Beat in Honolulu in the late 50s and he produced an experimental psychedelic record on Elektra on the theme of the Zodiac.

This was The Zodiac Cosmic Sounds, an album written by Mort Garson with Paul Beaver on the Moog. It is pretty much of its time; acid jams, space Moog, mad spoken-word, it's all there.

His two following albums, Cyrus and Islands have some good moments (still making up my mind about it) - nice cover of The Dolphins, tho. They're on Spotify.

He's currently working on two new albums.

Find more info: Wiki page
and this seems to be Cyrus' new blog

The Zodiac - Capricorn: The Uncapricious Climber (1967)

Fred Neil - Cynicrustpetefredjohn Raga (1966)

PS: You'll find The Zodiac on Spotify by typing 'zodiac cosmic'

Who Is Ed Burkey?

It starts like a Coil song, Who'll Fall? to be precise, and eases you into the ride, fazed and mellow, until the guitar cuts through the eardrum and toughen up the skin, cat claws out, waxy hair.

Ed Burkey is elusive and I haven't found much about him. Listen to him on the brilliantly named compilation Intoxica! Strange And Sleazy Instrumental Sounds From The SoCal Suburbs (on Spotify).

Ed Burkey - Night Rider (19??)