Sunday 18 December 2016

The Scrapes Brisbane 28/12

If you're in Brisbane over the next couple of weeks then come along to a rare appearance of we Scrapes (myself and Ryan Potter on guitar) live on a Brisbane stage.

The Bearded Lady, Boundary St, West End
The Scrapes
Primitive Motion
Glam Fail

Doors: 8PM
Tickets: $10 (available at the door)

Excellent poster designed by Primitive Motion's Sandra Selig:



 See you there and a happy Yule or whatever it is you may celebrate this time of year.

Sunday 4 December 2016

Bundled & Gone - Live Compilation NEW

I've put together a bit of a compilation of my live performances in recent years, all over the globe including performances in Ghana, Senegal, NYC, Straya. It's cheap and is a live primer for the upcoming BUSH SONGS RELEASE ON SOFT ABUSE Cheers, Adam

Sunday 27 November 2016

School of Underground Scrape Part 3

A Guide to Underground Violin sounds:

Fairport Convention - Liege & Lief
Fairport Convention - Babbercombe Lee

Well, to talk about the extraordinary importance of Dave Swarbrick's violin in the history of British music, and in particular the electric folk explosion of the late 60s/70s, is to make an understatement seem, well, understated. So an underground figure? Absolutely not. But the heavy electric fiddle sounds Swarbrick pioneered on his cuts with Fairport Convention not only sent him deaf, but also set a blueprint for just how intense and raw a fiddle can sound without pushing it into the sort of absurd realms your narrator is certainly guilty of. AND whether or not you see Fairport as a dusty old folk rock band your Dad loves, or trail-blazers who originated some of the Gothic electric sounds that would appear a few years later in extraordinary displays like Black Sabbath's Volume 4, there is something of use in much of their early output, particularly in their masterpiece Liege & Lief, though I personally find the Swarbrick dominated Babbercombe Lee to also be of note. But aside from this, explore everything Swarbs did back in the day, including the purely English folk filled solo records, the one that features a sozzled looking Swarbrick on the cover, sawing away at the violin with a fag hanging out of his mouth is of particular note, and his beautiful duos with Martin Carthy. Go on, it's worth it. RIP. 

Steeleye Span - Please to See the King

The hiss and scrape of Peter Knight's electrified fiddle on this Steeleye Span British electric folk classic from 1971 is not so distant from the sound of the more well-recognised wild-man fiddle of Fairport's Swarbs. It rips and tears through the jigs, reels, and ballads present on the one truly dark and forboding Steeleye record Please to See the King, a wintery collection that features Martin Carthy's booming electric guitar, Knight's scraping folk filddlisms and the haunting vocals of Maddy Prior. While Knight's playing itself is not as radical as some of the underground fiddlers I've discussed in these pages, and indeed there's not much "underground" about Steeleye Span or Fairport for that matter, there is a spirit of RESISTANCE in this work in its historical context. And this, my friends, is the true meaning of the underground, NOT "undiscovered", but "resistance", resistance to the status quo, to blind growth, greed and capitalist abandon, a call to return to the land and show it respect and love. There's much to learn here, very useful indeed, and the harsh, gain-knob-cranked sound of Knight's fiddle on this record is hands-down some of the best electric found scream you can achieve, a highly recommended choice for all and sundry, plug the fiddle into the biggest fucking valve amp you and find, straight in, and crank the gain. Cold. Should mention also what sounds like the fantastic drumming on the body of the electrified violin, accompanying the haunting vocal harmonies present on 'Boys of Bedlam', excellent use of the magnifying glass of amplification on the violin's surprisingly useful wooden body. 


John Doherty - Bundle & Go

This is an absolute classic of unique-as-fuck fiddle genius from an Irish Traveler who had lived such an itinerant wanderers existence that for the recording of this particular record, the engineers had to find him a fiddle to play on since he didn't presently own one - bringing to mind other mind-altering not-give-a-fuckers like Blixa Bargeld who by all accounts didn't own a guitar during his trail-blazing industrial noise forays in the early Bad Seeds (the Nick Cave kind of course). Of course to place Doherty - a great traditionalist - in the same breath as Blixa is perhaps incongruous to any of you stupid enough to read this, but there is a simple similarity in the immediacy of personality present in the playing. To depart from this line of thought instead let's reflect on ol' Johnny Doherty's life. A traveler, tinsmith (as were all Doherty's in the area it seems) and fiddler of the Donegal tradition, he would travel from house to house plying his wares (pots, pans and other useful goods, including tin fiddles it seems) or doing odd jobs, after which he'd be rewarded with a meal, some drink and in return he'd entertain with his fiddle and his rhythmically recited oral histories. His playing style is so narrative, packed with what seem to be improvisations impersonating animals, and the characters in the stories these songs tell, sometimes dating back hundreds of years, others more recent (that is the turn of the 20th century to the post-war period, Doherty passed into Saint Cecilia's arms in 1980 having been born at the dawn of the century in 1900). To see a prime example I recommend watching this excellent film and check out the scene where he plays in a pub to a collection of drunk blokes who request a piece that deals with a hunting scene. Bundle & Go is perhaps a limited snapshot of Doherty's life of song and story, hard work, and understated hardship, but it is a beautiful document of how music stays most alive within the oral tradition, and is only hung and dried when written down. Make your own oral traditions, and leave them that way will you.

Alexis Zoumbas - A Lament for Epirus, 1926-1928

The folk and early-mid 20th century musics of the Greek isles, especially the heartbreak of Rembetika, are truly worth exploring for anyone with half a mind. In the depths of this era of migration, refugees, war, terror and fascism (I'm talking about the 20s-50s in Greece but you know we could apply that to now pretty effectively), Greeks in exile produced records of soul-crushing beauty, and none more so effectively then this prize depressive Alexis Zoumbas. Recorded while he was in exile in the United States, these pieces collected by Long Gone Sound's Christopher King, feature Zoumbas' aching, broken-hearted violin, crying for what's left of his homeland. The wild, sliding, moans characteristic of this music, drag you down on your knees to weep for a homeland you never had, or inspire you to dance like a drunk marionette in the style of the ouzo-soaked gangster dandies depicted in Kostas Ferris incredible film Rembetiko (1983). A Lament for Epirus is an essential listen for any violinist, nay ANYONE, wishing to join the cultural resistance, for no truer notes were ever scraped out of bow, gut and wood.

Swans - The Burning World

The violin work on this album by NY industrial darkness peddlers Swans had a big impact on me upon first hearing it some years ago. I love this record and the other Swans records of the late 80s/early 90s that delve into this more neo-folk, folk-noir area, and the violin scraping on The Burning World is played by a host of legendary musos including Fred Frith, Mark Feldman, a Shankar! of the L. variety (double violin whatever that is), and Larry Packer who I hope is not one of those Packers. Rather hilariously, this record is Swans only major label number, recorded in 1989, and it would simply be amazing to think of a major label putting out something as bleak as fuck as this in the 21st century. At the time fans seemed to have thought it was a sell-out from the heavier industrial sounds that preceded it, but in the present context that seems laughable to say the least. The fiddle playing is not hugely exciting in and of itself, but it is inspiring to hear the mournful cries of the violin in the context of such monumental Gothicness. The violin is perfect for Doom and there should be more of it.

My Dying Bride - Turn Loose the Swans

To continue the gloomy swan theme I need to make mention of a band featuring violin that brought the instrument into the hallowed field of Doom Metal. Perhaps the most prolific Doom fiddler they had on board was Martin Powell - who plays violin and keys on Turn Loose the Swans - a leather and chains Goth nutter who also played quite a bit with Melbourne Doom Goths Cryptal Darkness, and laid keys on Cradle of Filth albums like 2000's Midian which was quite a popular listen amongst 17 year olds when I was a 17 year old. The first half of Turn Loose the Swans is great Death-Doom with violin, keys and a dark, grave-roaming Gothic feel that's well worth the trip. Then things get weird on the second side, and electronic and largely forgettable in my opinion. Still, My Dying Bride deserve respect for going so far out on a limb with such a weird album. A following release, Trinity, is a better listen in my opinion, but perhaps less of a milestone chronologically in the significance of violin DOOM.

Völur - Disir


Staying in the Doom and Gloom position, it's worth briefly exploring this recent gem. Volur distinctively feature a trio of drums, bass and elec violin + vocals. The violin is distorted to high hell, of course emulating metal guitar, but it still sounds distinctively violin and catatonic in its wailing. Trance-inducing doom, with Heathen themes and mournful melodies, it's well worth checking out this Canadian trio, buying this tape, and supporting a band who dare to take the fiddle to Doom weepage with such catastrophically beautiful effect. 

That's all in this lesson. Please note THE SCRAPES shall be playing 28/12 at The Bearded Lady, in Brisbane's West End, with Primitive Motion and Glam Fail joining us. Doors at 8pm. Tickets at the door shall be $10. We'll have vinyl copies of The Songs of Baron Samedi with us as well. Come along. Don't be shy. 


 


Wednesday 16 November 2016

Tonight 17 Nov at The Junk Bar, Brisbane

17/11

I will be playing with the mighty JIVE CANYON at Brisbane's finest venue The Junk Bar, in Ashgrove, this evening.

DETAILS


And a sample of what we do from the upcoming 2017 album:



See you tonight if you can make it.



Monday 7 November 2016

School of Underground Scrape Part 2

Some more key recordings of Underground Violin music:

Reaching back to the beginning of electric violin shredding we find a couple of diamonds in the rough so to speak, rough diamonds, uncut and filthy despite their hideous Hollywoodish American schtick historical placement. Both created some extraordinary music for the times it seems, with the first being one of the great innovators of Rock 'N' Roll, the other a more obscure choice, being both African-American AND a woman no doubt playing some part in this, although a life of cheesy cruise ship gigs and Las Vegas orchestra jobs, as well as becoming a TV personality, probably didn't help to overshadow her greater artistic triumphs.

The first to whom I refer is none other than Bo Diddley, whose background is famously enough rooted in the violin music his mother got him to play in church as a child, and without a doubt, like other guitar gods who followed such as Eddie Van Halen who also shared a childhood schooling in the violin, you can hear violin licks in Diddley's guitar playing. He never really got the violin out much in his legendary Rock 'n' Roll trailblazing, except for on a cut I recently discovered on my travels in NYC, spun by a 45 rockin' DJ at Troost in downtown Brooklyn one fateful September eve. I couldn't wait to tell Henry Flynt about it, before winding up a little drunk and promptly forgetting about it as I hit the air again Helsinki-bound, only to be reminded of it by fellow Scrapes founder Ryan Potter a few weeks later while I made my way through a can of Karhu in my Turku accommodation. I did finally share this piece, known as The Clock Strikes Twleve with Henry and it blew his mind - "this pre-dates my American ethnic music by several years"...well... - and my mind remains suitably blown.

A basic 12 bar blues R & B piece of late 50s rockabilly ilk expected by any of these guys, the standout element being that the instrumental features Diddley on electric violin as the key solo instrument. The fiddle creaks and soars, downtrodden and distorted like a futurist vignette of decades of black fiddle music, buzzing with a tone that harks back to West African bowed chordophones like the gondze or riti and as high and lonesome as the rustiest harmonica. It is an extraordinary document, and one can only wonder what woulda happened had this vein of fiddle rock been taken up on mass at the time. Alas that was not the case, but around the same time another fiddler, having studied with the great jazz violinist Stuff Smith, shook her stuff in great early, obscure be-bop numbers, like A Woman's Place is in the Groove, recorded in a gimmick all-female ensemble which seems to have barely hidden a genuine feminist sub-text by performing such a number. The violinist wailing in this band was known as Ginger Smock, and her playing is truly singular and sadly overlooked by most of the planet.

Ginger's playing on much of the extant recordings featuring her, isn't hugely special (although the feel is wonderful and has more of the Black Gypsy of Eddie South to it than the clean polish of her mentor Stuff Smith), but it is unique enough. There is one recording though that is of a similar mind-manifesting level to Diddley's aforementioned masterpiece, and that is Ginger's Boogie, a mysterious piece found on a rather innocuous compilation called 'Boogie Woogie Gals' (2015, JSP Records). A standard 50s boogie woogie tune, it winds up into a vamp over which a male voice asks Ginger about her "mighty fine box", licentiously referring of course to the violin, which Ginger then cuts loose on with the wild abandon of a woman who wasn't going to let that sorry motherfucker anywhere near either box. The solo is mean, intense, and wilder than anything I've come across from the era, and far too short, a burst of free electric fiddle mung in a sea of sexist, formica coated, Hollywood bullshit.

This is just scratching the surface of early electric violinists, but I dare say this is some of the heaviest stuff from the 40s and 50s set to groove that anyone could readily find.

   

Monday 31 October 2016

Adam Cadell - Bush Songs COMING SOON

Hello,

Some self-promotion this time around. I have a new album - BUSH SONGS - coming soon on the excellent SOFT ABUSE records. It's a project that's been in the works for a few years now and I'll let you draw your own conclusions about it. Was recorded in the Con studios in Brisbane back in 2014 with Daniel Kassulke engineering.

Here's a preview of the brilliant art layout by Reuben A. Warburton (has done the layout for the last couple of Scrapes albums):


So head over to SOFT ABUSE and harass the fuck out of Chris for your copy. Limited edition cassette tape and mp3 in perpetuity.

There's more rumblings beneath the deck - including SCRAPES news - and they shall be announced when I'm good and ready.

Adam.

Wednesday 26 October 2016

School of Underground Scrape

Key Recordings by Underground Violinists:


A guide to key recordings by visionary Underground Violinists:

  • Takehisa Kosugi, Catch Wave, Sony/CBS (1975) 
Hands down one of the most important recordings in the underground history of fringe-dwelling fiddlers. Not entirely a violin-based album with one side dedicated to a strange echoing world of voices. The violin side however, 'Mano Dharma '74', is devastatingly brilliant. Dark and echoing, glissandoing unmistakably Asian delay-soaked violin bounces around your head. Julian Cope wrote brilliantly of it in his Japrocksampler so I won't even try to top that. I bought a delay pedal because I heard this and while it's not the centre of what I do, it's bled into The Scrapes and a lot of my own solo work ever since I heard it. Essential stuff.

  • Tony Conrad, Outside the Dream Syndicate, Caroline (1973)
Tony Conrad's viciously monotonous (in a good way) collaboration with Krautrock legends Faust. One of the greatest slabs of drone ever conjured from the aether (in this case an aether heavy with weed smoke by all reports). Recorded during a visit to Germany by Conrad while he toured his wild structuralist films, and set up based on Conrad's reputation in proto-VU history, it appears to have not been a terribly memorable event for any of them - in part due to the weed, in part due to it not seeming very significant to all involved at the time - with Conrad apparently not even being aware of the album's release until a reissue was planned several years later. There are a few versions of this out there including an early 90s reissue with extra pieces that didn't make it to the two side-long monumental droneathons. Blood was allegedly shed to keep it that singular and monumental in tone, and I think you can hear it. If you don't get this, then don't bother reading any further.


  • Henry Flynt, You Are My Everlovin’/Celestial Power (psychedelic version), (1981, Reissued on CD by Recorded Records, 2001)
This reissue of a previously obscure tape of Henry Flynt's violin and tape long-form pieces 'You Are My Everlovin' and 'Celestial Power' is one of the masterpieces of what I lump together (somewhat inappropriately, but rather conveniently) as underground violin music. The version of 'Celestial Power' on here was recorded by Henry while he experimented with an LSD-like substance. His long-form pieces are based around drones "like stop-lights in traffic" that allow for extended explorations of Henry's idiomatic licks and riffs. Rather than sprawling free-form improvisations - although improvisation is an important element and they do give off that sort of feel - these pieces are made up of motifs and lines drawn from Henry's beloved American vernacular musics and Indian Classical Music (both Hindustani and Carnatic traditions) and synthesised into his own unique and thoroughly singular approach to violin playing. 
Original tape cover from 1981 tape issue of You Are My Everlovin/Celestial Power

   
The Recorded CD reissue version from 2001

  • Henry Flynt, Nova’Billy, Locust Records (1974, Released 2007)
By the mid-70s Henry Flynt was working in a full band format and trying to play gigs and land a recording contract. While having very little luck in this pursuit, Henry and Nova'Billy managed nonetheless to create a cult classic set of recordings that didn't become a cult classic until 30 odd years later when Locust Records was kind enough to finally release some of them. There's not much to say about this set other than that you should listen to it as soon as possible. Flynt blends all of the idiosyncratic elements of his "Avant-garde Hillbilly and Blues Music" - or "funky-country" as he sometimes seems to call it - into a "trucking and trancing" ride through an imagined America. Ride Henry's inner-byways and see if you come out the other end the same.

Cover from Locust Records' CD and LP release, 2007.



  • Taj Mahal Travellers, Live Stockholm, July 1971, Drone Syndicate (United States: 2000)
  • Taj Mahal Travellers, August 1974, Nippon Columbia (1975, reissued by P-Vine Records in 2001)
  • Taj Mahal Travellers, July 15, 1972, CBS Japan (1972)
The recorded documents of Taj Mahal Travellers are some of the most extraordinary music in underground music history, all featuring the creaking echo-plexed violin of Takehisa Kosugi. These inner-travellers didn't even see it as necessary to play to audiences half the time, favouring open-air space hoedowns on beaches, mountain tops, and in forests. A film, following the band through a pilgrimige from Tokyo, through Europe, to the Taj Mahal itself, even depicts wonderfully a moment somewhere in Asia, where Kosugi set up with his violin, accompanying a man weaving a fishing net. This music is the sound of Earth's tectonic plates moving, trees in forests rubbing together, dazzling light on the river's surface, and sweat on the worker's back. Truly essential listening for anyone wishing to blast capitalist hegemony out of their craniums.





  • Hawkwind, Doremi Fasol Latido, United Artists Records (United Kingdom: 1972)
  • Hawkwind, Hall of the Mountain Grill, United Artists Records (United Kingdom: 1974)
  • High Tide, Sea Shanties, Liberty/United Artists (United Kingdom: 1969)
The wild, uncivilised fiddle of Simon House is an aural pleasure for the adept. Particularly - or perhaps only really - in the context of Hawkwind, and the mighty - in its earliest incarnation that is - High Tide. Sea Shanties by High Tide is one of the great lost proto-Metal records, and featuring a distorted, wah-wahed lead fiddle no less. The Hawkwind albums should require no intro...so I won't intro them.





  • Amon Düül II, Phallus Dei, Liberty (Germany: 1969)
  • Amon Düül II, Yeti, Liberty (Germany: 1970)
The side-long piece 'Phallus Dei', on side two of Phallus Dei, with its swirling psychedelic fiddle parts driven by the acid drenched bow-arm of Chris Karrer, is perhaps one of the most sacred sites of Underground Violin lore. It surges and swirls in stoned abandon but this is no hippy hoedown, instead it's a dissonant dystopian noise like a mad fiddler on the roof of Ballard's High Rise. This is the kind of revolutionary fiddling that has inspired and informed my own approach to playing with band and has no doubt inspired many others when incorporating violin into such doom-laden explorations (Volür come to mind not to mention bands like My Dying Bride who dabbled in reverb-laden violin parts in past times). Yeti, released the following year, also contains similar wild unhinged fiddle histrionics to trip on 'til the next millenium comes round. If you need to get any two Amon Düül Zwei records, make it these Zwei.




Wednesday 24 August 2016

Fiddles of Wotan

Over the past few decades, in the United Kingdom, and indeed in the EU in general, underground violinists have developed remarkable new sounds often guided by very unique, and sometimes questionable, ideologies. English violinist Matt Howden is the perfect example of an underground ideology that grew throughout the 1980s and into the present day, that is mostly associated with the Industrial, Neo-Folk, Gothic and Black Metal sub-cultures that emerged to some prominence in the 1990s: Heathenism and/or Paganism. The Heathen and Pagan scenes are a complex sea of contradictory camps, but they roughly range from extreme right-wing revolutionaries hell-bent on the dominance of the white race, to characters like Howden who appear to espouse a radical link to nature, spirituality and tradition that is not based in race politics, but rather based in a neo-Romantic reaction to the modern world, inspired perhaps by prickly, pessimistic and misanthropic so-called "apoliteic" (to quote Anton Shekhovtsov) conservative revolutionaries such as Julius Evola, Ernst Jünger and the like but not necessarily embroiled in the racial politics that these characters were involved in at the turn of the twentieth century. Indeed neo-folk music is often also called ‘post-industrial’ or ‘apocalyptic folk’ music, suggesting that it would be the music made by the survivors of the human race's own self-destruction. Howden features on several recordings by Sol Invictus, a band headed up by Tony Wakeford whose first foray into solo music territory after leaving the equally controversial Death In June was a harsh military industrial project Among The Ruins, named for Evola's book of the same name. Howden's violin features throughout Sol Invictus' explicitly Evola-inspired song Against The Modern World (which was also the name of Sol Invictus' debut 1988 album which features a more stripped-back violin-free version of the tune) - heard here live with Howden's unmistakable violin playing, wild vibrato, slides and all - also named for Evola's most well-known (for an obscure proto-Nazi radical traditionalist mystic that is) book 'Revolt Against the Modern World'. 

Before readers start freaking out and accusing this humble author of right-wing sympathies, it is important to note here that neo-folk and associated genres reflect a varied and complex sub-culture that is often erroneously blanketed with broad accusations of links to neo-Nazism and the New Right, true of some, but not all, including seemingly, Howden. Despite his own clear disdain for modernity, and links to characters like Wakeford who was allegedly formerly a member of Britain's far-right National Front, Howden has reacted to accusations from Antifa reactionaries and the like with a piece outlining his dislike of the right, 'Rite Against the Right'
There is much in common with Howden’s violin playing and that of the early underground violinists (Henry Flynt, Tony Conrad, Takehisa Kosugi and the like). It is minimal, trance-inducing, and is based around loops (digital rather than tape). Howden also embraces multimedia elements in his performances, working with filmmakers and using lighting and projections to enhance his solo appearances. With the new technologies afforded by digital loop stations and effects pedals Howden is able to create washes of symphonic violin and percussion – all created by tapping on the body of the violin and even rubbing his stubble-covered chin on the bridge – over which he sings deeply Romantic lyrics devoted to nature, the Goddess and the occult. Tattooed prominently on his left forearm – which faces the audience as he plays his violin – is a sequence of runes making a tree-like shape, a clear statement of his interest in Europe’s pre-Christian roots.

Sieben's new album, cover featuring Howden looking suitably Pagan and baring his runic tattoo to the camera.

 Neo-folk musicians are also generally fiercely DIY, and Howden is no exception. He produces and sells all of his own works via his website, touring regularly and seemingly making a decent living out of his work in the process.[1] This way of connecting with his fans as consumers fits in well with the ideals of many in the underground and definitely within the Pagan/Heathen underground, as Neo-Folk artists’ work is produced and distributed in a fashion not dissimilar to the Slow Food movement, encouraging customers to buy locally made products by producers who proudly display their indigenous origins right down to the very region from which they hail. 
            This love of one’s own land can evoke a variety of taboo images in the Western listener and I needn’t explain the reasons why here. In the twenty-first century, a love of folk and a romantic attachment to soil is a subversive concept. This is not to be mistaken with patriotism or nationalism, but more a kind of tribalism based in distant divisions of land and culture long shattered by successive wars and imperialist expansion (on the extreme end of the spectrum you have Neo-Folk related artists involved in the ridiculous, neo-tribal segregationist National Anarchist Movement). At a time where corporate greed fuels the death of cultures, ecologies and even entire species, it is perhaps no surprise that artists and musicians in the underground are embracing ever more extreme ideologies with which to haunt the current capitalist hegemony. Therefore it is no shock to find another violinist lurking in the depths of the Heathen underground, Meri Tadic. Tadic, who performs under the pseudonym Irij, walks a similar path to that of Howden. Indeed these musicians both have their work sold from the same mail orders (such as Steinklang), and often distributed through the same small independent record labels (such as Neo-Folk mainstay Gerhard Hallstatt's Ahnstern label). 

Tadic also performs as part of the highly successful Pagan Metal band Eluveitie, playing violin and singing epic and operatic vocals. In the confines of Eluveitie she creates violin parts that work as part of the traditional element crucial to Pagan Metal, playing largely upbeat lines of stereotypical Celtic fiddling. As Irij she creates something far more radical. Her work in this guise is a Flyntian (a term I use to suggest an element in anyone's work akin to Henry Flynt's influential extending of the vernacular music of the southern United States) extension of the music of her native region (the former Yugoslavia, she is Croatian). While Eluveitie represents the kind of Pan-Europeanism that has more in common with the Eurovision song contest than anything else, Irij involves minimalist vignettes of an ideal of home, of an idea of culture that is personal and thoroughly subversive.[3] To feel a link to the land, to nature and to strongly feminine and matriarchal symbolism is deeply radical and linked to the roots element of the word itself.

The runes appear once again on Irij's eponymous Ahnstern records EP release.

Heathen radical violinists like Howden and Tadic are European roots radicals who, like the Krautrockers before them, seek out a new/old musical style free of Americanisation and corporate globalisation. Like Flynt they seek an autochthonous expression of a specific culture, class and people that is not necessarily swathed in tradition, but rather a radical extension of it, by pushing its symbols and nuances into something other. The ideals of heathen underground violinists are not those of the vulgar nationalism often fallen into by elements of their sub-culture, but of a yearning to escape the modern world. 




[1] TheNetineti, "Niezła Kiecka - Sieben [Matt Howden]," (YouTube, 2009).
[2] Matt/Sieben Howden, High Broad Field (EU: Iceflower/Trisol, 2006), Compact Disc. This album is largely inspired by the landscape surrounding a village in an area of moorland just outside Sheffield called High Bradfield.
[3] Irij/Meri Tadic, Irij (EU: Ahnstern, 2009), Compact Disc.

Friday 22 July 2016

New Tony Irving/Adam Cadell

A new Bandcamp page has been launched to document the live and studio work of Tony Irving/Adam Cadell duo. We've put up the old Duskdarter records release which is still free/pay what you want AND a new release: an incendiary live set from a househow in Brisbane back in 2014. Literally recorded in a very hot kitchen.



 


Friday 15 July 2016

Ø+yn

Some fantastic fiddle scrape present on these tracks here as alerted to me by the subterranean scraper himself Pablo who kindly dropped me a line from Argentina the other day. Get hip to this now and check out their massive catalogue of free freak skronk straight from Cordoba, Argentina over





In other news I've done some re-vamping of the ye olde BANDCAMP with the last remaining copies of Street Music Vol 1 on cassette being made available to all and sundry. I've got about 10 left there. Postage may seem extortionate but because of the beautiful artwork and box that the tape comes in unfortunately the Australia Post cannot help but rob me with high postage costs. It's completely worth it if your wallet goes deep enough. I've also set up a Subscription bit over there which gives you the option to actively support my tireless work against the squares ad infinitum.

The Scrapes new album The Songs of Baron Samedi is also now available through all digital distributors or whatever it is they call themselves, Spotify, iTunes, all that. It is also available - along with our minimal stash of translucent green vinyl - at THE SCRAPES BANDCAMP.

And last but not least my new album for solo violin BUSH SONGS is all but complete with the artwork underway. This will come out on the mighty Soft Abuse records whenever we get around to it.

Keep safe out there.
Adam

Thursday 7 July 2016

Subscribing and Dragons

You can now SUBSCRIBE to my bandcamp site and probably get access to some unusual bits and pieces that I'll put up over time for those who are kind enough to lend their support to my tireless Scraping.

Also this interesting piece with some wah fiddle I've somehow overlooked over the years....


Monday 30 May 2016

Work and Play

Some excellent fiddle scraping (from  Tord Bengtsson?) on this one. Interesting album all round.





In other news I shall be appearing with Ryan Potter for an increasingly rare THE SCRAPES live appearance....well set of appearances this time...at the Museum for Old and New Art (MONA)'s Dark MOFO festival in June. More specifically we'll be playing the WINTERFEAST part of the festival on the final 3 nights 17, 18 and 19 JUNE. Two sets per night. SO head to Hobart then - if you're not already situated there that is - to catch us.


Thursday 26 May 2016

Heathen New Age Vol 1

I've begun a series a compilations of the sort of sounds that inspire me or various compositions that I make/have made. The first one compiles a bunch of Black Metal ambient tracks, along with some weird new age stuff, and the odd touch of folkiness. There will be further volumes...

Monday 23 May 2016

Raga

Upper Partialism

On Saturday we had the first installment of a new collective action group for improvisation, noise, etc. UPPER PARTIALISM.

This will hopefully become a regular event over at Manor on Manning here in Brisbane and the proprietor of said Manor (Paul Young of Feet Teeth, and many other projects) has set up a Bandcamp page with free downloads of the documentation from last Saturday. Well worth getting a hold of. Features myself, Tony Irving, Paul and the rest of Feet Teeth and Adam Sussman (known for playing with a lot of incredible groups).

Sunday 8 May 2016

New Release

My latest solo offering - this time of a more electric nature. On the ever excellent Finnish 267 Lattajjaa label. 90 odd % of funds from purchases go to me, the rest to a label that puts out brilliant music often free of charge.

 

Wednesday 23 March 2016

Street Music Vol. 1

Sunday 20 March 2016

Adam Cadell - Street Music Vol. 1 TAPE out NOW

The wait is over... ADAM CADELL - STREET MUSIC VOL. 1 is out NOW on the excellent Cabin Floor Esoterica records. It looks and sounds excellent and is available H E R E You can also get Street Music Vol. 1 bundled with the 3 other incredible Cabin Floor Esoterica releases in this batch H E R E ! ! ! Don't fuck about. Get over there and pick up a copy before they're all gone. I will have copies myself to sell soon enough so keep an eye on this space for links to make the purchase.

Tuesday 2 February 2016

Thursday 28 January 2016

Tony Irving and Adam Cadell duo TONIGHT!

Tonight! 29/1 at VISIONS GALLERY, ABSOE building, West End, Brisbane.

7PM

$5 or $10.

Tony Irving (drums) + Adam Cadell (violin)

+ John Smeathers DJ set AND the completely insane antics of Sylvia...Brisbane's "finest" snake-charmers.

FACEBOOK EVENT THINGGGGG



Also fresh video evidence from the recent solo live action at The Junk Bar's Skukum Lounge in Brisbane. New works and improvisations on traditionals gathered during recent travels. NEW Adam Cadell cassette is out soon through CABIN FLOOR ESOTERICA. Keep your eyes on them for updates.

Sunday 17 January 2016

17 JAN

Thanks to all who attended the STREET MUSIC Vol 1 launch last night. Was a culmination of many ideas gathered on my Australia Council funded activities over the last 6 months added to the sort of work you'll find on my new tape out soon through CABIN FLOOR ESOTERICA. Here's some evidence.










Tuesday 5 January 2016

Street Music Vol. 1 Tape Launch 17 JAN, Brisbane

17 Jan 2016

Street Music Vol. 1

Tape Launch

Supported by The Steady as She Goes

AT The Junk Bar, Ashgrove, Brisbane. 

Tickets $10

DOORS 6:30PM

Join Adam Cadell of local instrumentals duo The Scrapes, for an evening of broken-down fiddling tales, recently aired to audiences in New York and Helsinki. Cadell's forthcoming album "Street Music Vol. 1" continues with his dissident approach to the fiddle, but moves away from past electric drone-based works and into a regressive world of of fiddle-based storytelling, constructed from fragments of songs uncovered through ramblings with hillbillies and nomads in the US and Senegal. His 9th solo outing to date, Street Music Vol. 1 will be released as a limited edition set of hand-crafted cassettes by US label Cabin Floor Esoterica. The launch will be opened by the dark balladry of The Steady As She Goes.

http://adamcadell.bandcamp.com/
http://cabin-floor-esotercia.com/
https://the-steady-as-she-goes.bandcamp.com/