Forever At The Push Of A Button

An hour (and five minutes) of Sonic Boom, all purchased within the last 12 months.  This selection and post comes with an inexcusable pun warning. Watch out. Here it comes. Wait for it...

 

I was a late b(l)oom(er) - sorry! - when it comes to Pete Kember. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, I was aware of but didn't particularly buy into Spacemen 3, Spectrum or Experimental Audio Research, literally or metaphorically. I was subsequently enlightened.

More recently, I've been enjoying Sonic Boom's run of new releases via Bandcamp, a real purple patch, not that I'm suggesting that there have been any fallow periods, far from it. In 2022, Pete teamed up with Noah Lennox aka Panda Bear from Animal Collective to produce the heady delight that is the album Reset. A 'Songbook Instrumentals + Remixes' companion was released late last year and a further iteration 'Reset In Dub', the entire album dubbed up by Adrian Sherwood, is released in full on Friday. Scroll to the bottom for my Dubhed selection, which starts off with Sherwood's wonderful rework of Whirlpool and includes further selections from the original and 'Songbook' albums.

The rest of the selection includes artists that are familiar to me (hello again, Pye Corner Audio) or that I've heard for the first time via these purchases. 

Sunray aka Jon Chambers has teamed up with Sonic Boom on a couple of occasions (including a fab cover of Ocean by The Velvet Underground). I bought Sonic Boom's mix of Music For The Dreamachine (Phase One) last week as a 2023 release, only discovering when writing this post that the track was in fact released as a one-sided 12" way back in 2000. No matter, it's twenty four and half minutes of pure bliss and sounds very now.

Veik is a trio comprising Boris Collet, Vincent Condominas, and Adrien Legrand, hailing from Caen, in the heart of Normandy in France. This is one of several remixes from their Surrounding Structures album and, by contrast with Sunray, is a breathtaking brisk remix coming in at under four minutes.

A Place To Bury Strangers have been around since the early 2000s and, after several line-up changes, are currently a trio of Oliver Ackermann, John Fedowitz and Sandra Fedowitz. Until last Bandcamp Friday, my APTBS collection was limited to a couple of remixes of their own songs and a few of them remixing others (Andy Bell, Grinderman and bdrmm). They've been dubbed elsewhere as the "loudest band in New York" and who am I to argue?

 

I'm still working my way through the mammoth remix companion to sixth album See Through You, featuring fresh takes by the likes of Trentemøller, Xiu Xiu, Annie Hart of Au Revoir Simone, bdrmm (repaying the favour) and Andy Bell in his GLOK guise, the latter the one that drew me to the album in the first place. The Sonic Boom remix of Love Reaches Out included here is a standout and if you buy the digital edition, you get a bonus Sonic Boom remix of My Head Is Bleeding. Cranial injuries are clearly an issue for APTBS, one of the few older songs in my collection being To Fix The Gash In Your Head. You need a health and safety risk assessment, mate.

 

David Holmes always delivers a beauty and his remix of Panda Bear and Sonic Boom continues that trend without hesitation. Taken from the Songbook Instrumentals + Remixes iteration of Reset.

 

John Massoni is another artist that I'd not heard of before last week but who, like Sunray/Jon Chambers, previously collaborated with Pete Kember in 2000 (with The Sundowner Sessions EP). The pair returned for this year's Record Store Day with an album, Think Of Me When You Hear Waves, which I've purchased digitally. It's a beautiful excursion and I'll be looking out for more of Massoni's recordings on the back of this.

 

If you're similarly inspired, I've included Bandcamp links - YouTube where not available or in the case of Edge Of The Edge, the official video because it's just to much fun - and all tracks are available for purchase there or elsewhere digitally and in some cases physically. Money well spent, in my opinion.

 

Thanks, Pete!

 

 

 

 

 

 

1) Whirlpool Dub (Adrian Sherwood 'Reset In Dub’ Version): Panda Bear & Sonic Boom (2023)

2) Saturation Point (Sonic Boom Remix): Pye Corner Audio (2022)

3) Music For The Dreamachine (Phase One) (Mixed By Sonic Boom): Sunray (2000)

4) Edge Of The Edge (Album Version): Panda Bear & Sonic Boom (2022)

5) Difficult Machinery (Sonic Boom Remix): Veik (2023)

6) Love Reaches Out (Sonic Boom Rererealized): A Place To Bury Strangers (2023)

7) Gettin' To The Point (David Holmes Remix): Panda Bear & Sonic Boom (2022)

8) Sun (Sonic Boom Mix): John Massoni with Sonic Boom (2023)

2000: Music For The Dreamachine (Phase One) EP: 3

2022: Let’s Remerge! EP: 2

2022: Reset: 4

2022: Reset (Songbook Instrumentals + Remixes): 7

2023: Reset In Dub: 1

2023: See Through You Rerealized: 6

2023: Surrounding Structures Remixes EP: 5

2023: Think Of Me When You Hear Waves: 8

Forever At The Push Of A Button (1:05:47) (KF) (Mega)