General Letter

Dear all;
I am terrible at up-dating this blogspot, as I always find by the time I get round to writing little letters my news always is out of date almost as quick as I have finished typing it.

Anyway, if you keep your eye on "Setting Sun" - you will start to notice major changes over the next month or three as I am starting to swap things round with it.

Firstly, I spent several hours over the week-end just gone actually designing an on-line shop, (http://www.geocities.com/aen1mpo/shop.html) which is designed to let people hear more of the many mp3’s in my archive (I think there is over 30MB on there now and I will be expanding it soon to include more also) and also give people the opportunity if they are brave enough or indeed mad enough the chance to buy the CD’s.

The price for each CD is only going to be £2 and a little bit for postage and packaging more. If I am honest, I don’t think I will sell many if any, but that isn’t really the point behind it - I guess it is only fair it will give people the chance instead of previously denying them.

Otherwise, interviews are starting to come in thick and fast - I have recently posted online a interview with Matt Elliott (Third Eye Foundation) and Chris Cole (Manyfingers) associate and friend - Yann aka "Encre" and "Thee, Stranded Horse" who is interesting and completely different perhaps akin to Rufus Wainwright meets John Cale - check out the interviews page on http://www.geocities.com/aen1mpo

Also in process of being done, but somewhat delayed through formatting problems and also last minute editing by the band is a interview with the perhaps Queen Adreena / Babes in Toyland hardcore "Little Whores on the Piaire" - Full details to follow when this interview is posted.
Otherwise, I am working hard on my second novel "Intermission" and am 35 pages or so into the second novel. I will soon be updating the extract on my creative writing page to include the revised Chapter One, which if I don’t say so myself is so, so, so much stronger.

I have in addition have wrote a few poems, including the first draft of my Christmas Poem for this year, which yet doesn’t have a title but is proving really pleasing.

In addition, work is underway on the Christmas Album for this year.. I have finalised 5 tracks for it - Keith Hicc (My partner in D.I.H,) has done a number of solo tracks (4, I think) and they may be appearing on the album.

Otherwise, Lil Andy (the voice of M.A.N.) has done vocals for 4 tracks (and may make a guest appearance on a 5th track too), my poet friend, Anne has left me with vocals for a excellent Christmas Joke and my good buddy, Jeff aka Octave Sounds has also expressed a interest in doing backing music for at least two pieces and if we can get his microphone working also recording at least one or two sets of vocals.

Once we have finalised this, I am then hoping to crack on with several other projects including the next D.I.H album ("Suicide") which is looking good at 7 or 8 tracks, a album or a long EP by B.A.N. (M.A.N style madness from me and my pal, Helen), a solo album by Andy, my vocalist in M.A.N (He wants me to produce some of his rantings which were recorded for M.A.N tracks to be played solo) and perhaps even another album by M.A.N………. We’ll see…

Cheers - Hope you are well…….

Andy N

Robots and Electronic Brains Review

Robots and Electronic Brains
Issue 15

(Fanzine with 5 record label sampler CD)

I love Robots and Electronic Brains.

I have no idea where the name for this excellent fanzine comes from, and I’ve been a subscriber to it for a good few years now, but it works incredibilly well as with each issue, you get a wealth of reviews mostly from CDR / independent labels, most of which are so independent - the only way you will be able to track down their good is if you contact them directly, and that is always a good thing.

Following such an approach, it has resulted in me with 4 interviews with various groups, all gained directly through reviews with Robots and Electronic (The frightening Guitare Brothers, the brooding Trilemma the slightly more lo-fi Japhy Ryder and the Indie-ish Horowitz), and I always look like to reading the magazine, which in this case also featured an excellent Trilemma interview, which is very different from their Setting Sun interview, but great fun to read still.
Also enclosed with the magazine was a free 5 record label CD, which is great fun to listen to as it always focuses on a various of these such independent record labels and serves as a excellent introduction to some of these labels.


First up on this CD is Abaton Book Company, which seems to mix influences from Indian classical singing (Veena Sahassrabuddha), a singing Russian Poet (Julia Vorontsova), the P.J.Harvey-ish (Marrianna Nowottay) among others which frequently made me feel like I was listening to music in literally another world… Very interesting in places at worst and first rate at it’s best.

Next which I really enjoyed in particular is Earsinger, which among their two artists here on offer was a lot more floaty and seemed to go a lot closer to Shoegazy music from the early 90’s like Chapterhouse and Slowdive on "Hi Lonesome Electric" and computerised vocals on "Cracklebox" - both of which are well checking out as they also kind off reminded me of the infamous KLF album "Chill out"…. Excellent.

After that we have Sweden’s "My Secret Garden" which is a much lo fi label with my favourites being to the lo-fi experimental folk of "Fibi Frap, the haunting "Evergreen Day (which I think Setting Sun will be contacting) and Erik Hallden, which according to the notes was recorded in a cabin by the sea, and actually sounds like it was almost like Orange Juice / Nick Drake expect slightly more muffled. Good stuff.

Sonic Arts Network in contrast is something completely different in contrast to all of the first three labels following electronic improvision rather than the bliss pop of Earsinger or the charmingly lo fi pop of "My Secret Garden".

I must admit I didn’t enjoy all off it, as I think with a lot of that sort of stuff it is really open to your own mood and personal taste, but I did particularly enjoy personally the Kaffe Matthews section which contained some very interesting sounds which made me want to listen to the full set.

"The Starclub" section was the last label featured and for me was the most difficult bit to listen to, as like with Sonic Arts Network it seemed to follow a similar sort of experimental path, but like with Sonic Arts, I must admit I didn’t enjoy really, but did it find it interesting at least, even if it wasn’t really my cup of tea.

On the whole, like the magazine - the CD is not going to be everybody’s cup of tea, but if you like your music to be a little wilder and unsusual - I would certainly recommend you check out this CD.

It certainly beats "The Wire" by a good yard or two, which is the nearest mainstream magazine to this.