Lol Hammond, formerly of Spiral Tribe and The Drum Club, has a band with Karen Frost and Stefan Gordon called Are We Superheroes? that sounds nothing like either of those two. Fast Forward came out in September and is a short blast of rattling, uptempo, fuzzy, guitar music, partly coming from post punk, partly from early 90s shoegaze/ indie, partly from mid period Mary Chain, partly from the guitar sounds of the 00s of groups like LCD Soundsystem and the post first album Horrors. They do a good line in melodic alienation and future shock.
Duncan Forbes, collaborator with Lol on an overlooked 2020 ambient/ drone/ psyche album titled Who Will Stop The Robots?, has done a remix, stripping away the chug and loading it with some frantic, propulsive drums instead.
Another Bagging Area mix for you, an hour of old and new and fairly ambient/ drone/ instrumental based but with Mark E. Smith turning at the end to add his inimitable voice to proceedings. In fact the only other voice is Andrew Weatherall's, heard briefly at the end of Prana Crafter's Starlight, Sing Us A Lullaby, a moment that got to me the first time I heard it. You can find Tiers In December on Mixcloud.
Kams: Hopfen (Richard Norris Remix)
Stray Harmonix: Mountain Of One
Harold Budd: The Pearl
A Winged Victory For The Sullen: Keep It Dark, Deutschland
Lol Hammond is not a man to sit around twiddling his thumbs. He started out in Spiral Tribe and The Drum Club in 1991, formed Slab with Nina Walsh, recorded with Matt Rowlands and Mandy Wall as Girl Eats Boy, has made albums with Roger Eno, collaborated with Chris Coco on soundtrack inspired music, has been the music supervisor and soundtrack artist on a slew of British films and has recorded two albums with Duncan Forbes and now a new project as Are We Superheroes?
Girl Eats Boy released an album in 1997 called Thrilled By Velocity And Distortion, a record chock full of breakbeats and samples bursting with energy. The song titles on the album were a joy- take your pick from Napalm In Bohemia, Kill Pussy Kill, Moist Babe Hates The Government, Surfing In Reykjavik- and this one, Chemical Phunk, which shows where their heads were at. Samples Sabres Of Paradise too unless I'm very much mistaken.
As Slab Lol and Nina were immersed in electro and techno, making repetitive, minimal music for small clubs. Their 1995 track Atomsmasher was remixed by Andrew Weatherall (and engineered by David Harrow) with one version (Mix 3) on the 12" and another (Mix 1) on white label 10". As with most Weatherall remixes from the mid 90s this is a long, progressive techno track with weird noises as standard, and plenty going on to keep you interested up to the tenth minute.
More recently Lol has been active with Duncan Forbes (formerly of Manchester based DJ/ production duo Spooky , stalwarts of the live and club scene in the mid- 90s). Lol and Duncan released a lovely album earlier this year, Who Will Stop The Robots, ten tracks that skirt the edges of ambient, drones, dreampop and glistening psychedelia. I posted a song called Sorry Kids We Left You With A Black Sun previously. This one, Snow Ghosts, has a dark, slow motion beauty and the voice of Eve Abraham.
If that isn't enough at the end of November Lol put out the first release by a new group he's formed with Karen Frost and Stefan Gordon, Are We Superheroes? Judy In The Starry Sky has a pleasingly skeletal drum machine banging away, Karen's vocals and a distorted guitar part that reminds me of lots of my favourite guitar bands. If you like the c86 bands or grew up with NME and Melody Maker, 4AD, Rough Trade and Creation you'll enjoy this a lot. Available at Bandcamp at the name your own price deal.
In May I posted two songs from the Lol Hammond and Duncan Forbes album Who Will Stop The Robots?- the shoegaze plus 808s shimmer of Sorry Kids We left You With A Black Sun and the more ethereal The Sky Is Falling (the post is here). The album is released today digitally, eleven tracks that definitely tap into something of the times we live in, ambient lockdown psychedelia maybe. The album's closer is this one, Lights Out (Return To Strawberry Fields), four minutes of gentle, blissful noise, some evocative Mellotron notes (hence what's referred to in the brackets) and the overall feeling that things might just turn out OK in the end.
Lol Hammond (Ex- Drum Club) and Duncan Forbes (ex- Spooky) have a new album out in July, a record called Who Will Stop The Robots? Ahead of it are two new songs. This one, Sorry Kids We Left You With A Black Sun is a beaut, a full on wall of swirl, the shimmer and haze of shoegaze with 808s and the floating vocals of Eva Abraham. Majestic summer sounds with an apocalyptic warning.
Ahead of that one, back in March, came The Sky Is Falling, an emotive Eno- esque piece of ambient piano music which drifts in, wraps its arms around you and then departs again leaving you better than it found you.
Slab were Nina Walsh (Sabrettes label boss and currently one half of the Woodleigh Research Facility alongside Andrew Weatherall) and The Drum Club's Lol Hammond. In the mid 90s they made a handful of techno records, often quite banging, in-your-face style techno. Their track Atomsmasher was remixed by Weatherall into a stripped back number with bleeps and bloops. It is equally laid back and intense, if that's possible.
