Elsewhere: Record company monkey business

By GRAHAM REID

Courage and foolhardiness are dance partners when it comes to starting a record company, as we were reminded on Monday when a thin, stubble-bearded and young Roger Shepherd appeared on our screens. He was playing himself on Give It A Whirl, around the time he started Flying Nun. Later a fatter-faced, grey-haired, infinitely wiser and more cynical Shepherd appeared with a bemused grin, saying his label had effectively wiped the old guard of other bands off the map. That, he thought, was an achievement he could be proud of.

Anyone who knew Shepherd in those 20 intervening years can tell you the achievement came at the price of many tears before bedtime, far too much self-medication, and money worries of the kind no one deserved, least of all someone who just wanted to put music into the world.

These days starting a record company is no easier but people seem a lot smarter at it. They license tracks to compilations and soundtracks, have an internet connection which plugs them into like-minded people and potential buyers across the planet, and (unlike the young Shepherd) have some idea of fundamental book-keeping practices. They have often done a course in how to run a small business.

They also find a niche market to work, which perhaps explains why Monkey Records is still around and releasing albums which slip neatly between ambient and electronica. Music that fits on to like-minded compilations and soundtracks.

A couple of years ago, Monkey's Nigel Braddock turned up with a clutch of albums, all of which impressed. They also had a bit of pedigree: AOATE was actually Jo Contag, a member of Cloudboy, and Hummel was the pseudonym of Andy Cummins who had toured with them as a vocalist. Label boss Braddock was better known as Lotus, the name under which he appeared at places like the Gathering.

But electronica-ambience is a marginal-profit niche and while this column genuinely said positive things about those albums (and yes, has played them repeatedly since) it wouldn't have been surprising never to have heard of Monkey Records again.

But ... Here come another four albums of uniformly high aural and visual presentation and it would seem the label is up and flying. Hummel and AOATE are back, musical polymath Nigel Gavin (Gitbox Rebellion, one of Robert Fripp's Crafty Guitarists, Nairobi Trio, Jews Brothers and more) has a collection on the label, and the unfortunately named Onelung delivers a real diamond with Nu Scientist.

Onelung - aka Kevin Tutt, formerly of Auckland guitar band Cicada alongside Andrew Spraggon, aka Sola Rosa - marries subtle electronica with real upright bass, Eno-like deep space journeys, the ethereal vocals of Rachel Bailey on the seductive High Rhodes, and looks back to the likes of This Heat and Cluster for aural references. He offers the requisite downbeat tracks but colours them with deft touches from soft guitar, gets funky and into kitschy soundtrack stuff, and has the nerve to name a bass-driven track after Ornette Coleman's Change of the Century. He's ambitious, but it's hard not to like this.
(Herald rating: * * * *)

Hummel's previous (self-titled) album seemed a little shapeless but mediOCHRE is anything but. It is a sonic journey from lo-fi beginnings through spoken-word samples, downbeat electronica, live guitars, gentle songs, and techno-static. It finds its soul in the exploration of space between sound. Experiments never sounded so fruitful. Further proof quiet can say a lot.
(Herald rating: * * * *)

Nigel Gavin's wittily titled, long-overdue album under his own name Music for Flem: Volume II, the first volume of three, makes overt reference to Eno's Music for Films albums and follows much the same ethic: soundtracks for imagined and imaginary movies. Over 16 tracks using mandolin, loops, guitars, banjos, a flower pot and other instruments, Gavin conjures up images of dark alleys behind a funky poolhall (the Waitsean Bugnuts and Beefcake), moonrise over a forest (Aspiration), what he appropriately calls "a spaghetti eastern" (the Middle Eastern cowboy theme on Dodi Li), a hypnotic rippling of repeated guitar figures (Bass Grain), some 80s casino-lounge swing (Sving-ing-ing!), a cheerful morning on a warm Pacific beach (Glad Tidings) and much more. Whatever you imagine, in fact. Lots of information here.
(Herald rating: * * *)

Lastly from Monkey, AOATE returns with Sleepytime Vol 2: Schlafwandler, which follows his previous You Are Feeling Sleepy as another soundtrack for somnambulists. Five tracks, a little over an hour in total from the opening sound of processed piano and its prolonged overtones, through drones, the endless night on the spaceship Nostromo, chimes, sliding bass over a deliberately cheap drum sound, and other discreet music. A texture as much as an album. (Herald rating: * * *)

And finally to lift us out of this benign, sleepy, slightly self-absorbed world: the French downbeat outfit Zimpala blow the clouds away on The Breeze is Black (Rhythmethod), a collection of good-natured, jazzy ambient soul which has Groove Armada/Boozoo Bajou appeal. Driven from the bottom by big bass and a funk-ified feel, or flicking Latin rhythms to get the blood moving again, it indulges in romantic washes of strings, some cafe jazz, invokes Twin Peaks ambience, and there's a faux-soul funk track where the sole lyric is a whispered "I simply can't fall asleep". Throughout they ensure you won't. After all that Monkey, this is a heart-starter you might want to consider.
(Herald rating: * * * *)