This thing is Melting

This thing has been in our house for a few years now. A Christmas present from a work colleague.

Seemed innocent enough. But I think it might be melting now. Strange sounds are leaking out and it seems only I can hear them. This could be the new humchatter. We'll see.

Highpoint Lowlifes

Well, there should have been an inner-view with Thorsten, head-honcho from Highpoint Lowlife, as part of my not particularly ongoing series of future stealers (as documented here and here) but I think that things are changing a little re: Highpoint Lowlife and so he's been a bit reluctant.

Still, I've managed to contract a couple of Remote (Inter)Viewers from the backslides of Chard and Steeple, a mere ectoplasmic slick from the Idiot's Guide Temple in Taunton* and now I think we're just about ready to dig into Thorsten's mindmoulds.

((((((((*follow an etymological path from River Tone - the moon mood musick, tidal tones, Tone-Loc, The Anti-Group's Teste Tones - "we hear the lapland, the laps on the land.." and then reverse-turn from the Tau and end up in Mithras, inside the Taurobolium pit, letting it rain tears of blood )))))))))

Er...

Ok, Thorsten, lets have it:

1) first, tell me a little about the label - how did it all get started?

Well, it started out as a legal form of tender, legal here that is. Really, it was the endpoint of a whole chain of events - for example, the coinage issues of mid to late 20s, where no one really knew how to spend or save... I...

(Here Thorsten pauses, as if remembering an evil clown)

... You see, if you weren't there then... this is going to sound odd. Maybe I shouldn't start from the beginning because...

(Sigh. Twinkle)

The label started because at that time we were using releases as legal tender, as coinage. We'd started with feathers and leaves then progresseed (with little fortune, though don't print that) to shears and bottle-tops, to compensate the townfolk who couldn't get out much. Next the limes and the goblets, before returning to a particularly crazed (and actual) coin which looked the same as any other except had a number of extraneous moral messages indented into the edge.

Then someone decided that records and CDs might be more useful and Highpoint was born. The Lowlife, as i'm sure you know, came later.

2) is there a label out there that served as inspiration?



This isn't just a visual pun. The Tate and Lyle label has been inspiring, for many reasons. In the Book of Judges 14:14, Samson was travelling to the land of the Philistines in search of a wife (plenty there, apparently). During the journey he killed a lion, and on his return past the same spot he noticed that a swarm of bees had formed a comb of honey in the carcass. The similarities between this and the genesis of Highpoint Lowlife are obvious, I think... Carcass? Lion? Bees? Well, I particularly like the use of the Samson riddle on the label: "Out of the eater came forth meat and out of the strong came forth sweetness" because it reminded me of the Coil song, Ostia which I know you're going to mention because you always mention Coil in every fucking post...

3) who would be your ideal signing?

Shane McGowan's techno project with Morten Harket from A-Ha... best thing since Alien Sex Fiend went techno.

That or Prince. We could do a job on that little guy, I think.

4) Which release has been your favourite so far?

So hard... so hard... I guess I'd have to say that it's Magnetism, That Electricity beccause that's the one that really got noticed by the staff at our favourite blog An Idiot's Guide to Dreaming...

(I look at him, searching for clues. Too late.)

Nah. It's probably one of The Village Orchestra things. Love those girls. Incredibly hot, all three of them and well up for a bit of promotion, if you know what I mean. Really couldn't give a shit about An Idiot's Guide To Dreaming.

5) Highpoint Lowlife aside, tell us your five favourite albums of all time

Highpoint Lowlife aside? Fuck you.

Oh, I guess...

Peter Gabriel 1

Peter Gabriel 2

Peter Gabriel 3

Peter Gabriel 4

HNAS - Melchior

6) What's in the future of Highpoint Lowlife?

(A long pause. A long pause. He comes back sometime in the next decade)

There. Is. Nothing. I. Have. To. Say. About. Time. Of. Any. Kind.

7) Suggest a track for my funeral

Oasis - Live Forever

Yeah. Abso Glasto Lutely! A track of dreams, man. Pure energy. I'm ot dying, I'm dyeing... You know. A Death's Head Dylon fix! God, yeah. Libby flipped Kipling y'know. Kipling. Made cakes and wine, got caught at the back end of a bull, caned Del Monte (as in Del Boy). Car salesman and all round mean-giver. Blown fuses and spark plugs for noses...

(At this point I assumed he was speaking in tongues and I turned off the tape for ethical reasons)

8) Any films or books that have acted as an inspiration to you?

(Thorsten is a lot calmer now, though now sucking on oxygen through a nosepipe like Gary Oldman in Hannibal)

Well, it'd be hard not to mention HP Lovecraft, especially after all the difficulties we faced getting The Starry Wisdom project off the ground...


(He gives a little subsonic whistle here. At least, I think he does)

...the estate, the fucking ghost of Osman Spare, all that creeping around Dunwich and wherever... clashing with the feral girl gangs responsible for those English Heretic plaques... but Lovecraft, or rather Cthulhu himself, is behind an awful lot of the releases on Highpoint Lowlife - an atmosphere more than anything, a guiding black light... Lovecraft and electricity, the buzzzzzzzzzzzz, y'know... what you said about the 10-20 album... neurobashment... to me, that is so HP, you know.. such a sauce... love him, love it... I think we had a better thrash at Cthulhu than anyone.. I really do... we may even have charged some brains...

(Tape unspools. Didn't even realise that digital recorders could do that...)

The final 2 vinyl releases from this label, soon to be deaded (truly awful news, this is genuinely one of my favorite labels of recent years), are by Roof Light and then they'll close with albums Depakote, Erstalub and The Village Orchestra and an epic DVD-r compilation featuring pretty much everyone who was ever released on or worked with the label.

Can't wait for that one.

After that, Thorsten Sideb0ard will moving on to focus on writing and drawing a graphic novel entitled "74", which is set in a near future post-industrial northern UK city...

The machine rolls on...

Cheers for all the great music, Thorsten; I've still got you down as a future pioneer...

To end, here's a link to the recent Highpoint Lowlife show on Exotic Pylon.

Inner-VIew W/Julianna Barwick

...second* in a series of inner-views with random artists whom I think might be the future... long-scale guesses, open-asks, shrills and tidings - sweeping up detritus from the aether regions, old hands swapping with new faces...

Your music strikes me as very 'benevolent'( see here for what I mean by that); is it designed to be?

I've heard from a lot of people that they find my music very relaxing, chilled-out, meditative, etc. I saw on itunes the other day that 2 kids said that 'florine' helped them get through finals! I'm not aiming to make peaceful or zen'd-out music- it all kind of comes out the way it wants to so i guess most of them are slows jams- i'm a pretty relaxed, daydreamy, easy-going person so maybe that's why it sounds the way it sounds. If it takes people to a dreamy place when they listen then i'm really happy about that.

There's a clear similarity to certain kinds of religious, choral music; is this a conscious influence?

Totally. I grew up going to church 3 times a week and we sang a
cappella. Beautiful, beautiful hymns with layers and layers of vocals and
even some quirky 'fun' ones with clapping and female vocals and male
vocals taking turns, and back and forth. this undoubtedly informed my
musical tastes. Later I was in choir in high school and then an opera
chorus so I was always acquainted with the human voice and what it can do
in a choral setting. I just love the sound of many voices coming together-
especially the swells of emotion in most hymns and choral pieces. the
church i sang in when I was a kid was a cavernous space that supplied a
beautiful, echoing, ringing reverb that also has stuck with me. I try to
achieve that kind of sound in most of what i do.

I've never seen you play but I'm curious how your stuff translates to a live setting...

it's just me on stage, with some stuff, building the loops one at a time - usually just singing. It can take close to ten minutes sometimes to
end up with the 'song'. It's starting with the spare, lone vocals and
builds to a choir of sound - of sorts.

Are you going to play in the UK anytime soon?

Would love to but no immediate plans as of yet. spring?

For the sake of the techie geeks that read this(you know who you are) could we have an equipment / software list? You use a Loop Station don't you?

...sure do - i sing into a shure mic (sm58)- into an effects pedal (helicon voice tone create- the only pedal i could find that was made specifically
for voice and that has reverb, delay, and tons of other effects, all in
one), into a roland rc-50 loop station - you can build 3 loops at a time
and fade in and out, and that's it. i've been known to use an electric
guitar occasionally, keyboards, a triangle, and some other things (even a
brian eno iphone app---yes), but 90% of the time it's just me and singing
and the equipment.

Care to name some musical influences?

...aforementioned church music, bjork, thom yorke/radiohead, panda bear/animal collective, boy choirs (i've seen the american boy choir, vienna boys choir, and the boys choir of harlem live- so amazing)-- there are tons of musicians/groups that i love but as far as influencing me - those take the cake.

Anyone you'd like to collaborate with?

...any of the above, antony, nico muhly, bill callahan, black dice, film scorers, city center, laurie anderson.

What about non-musical influences? Films? Books? Which book do you think you could soundtrack effectively?

...almost as influential, but not quite, as my experience singing in church,
was seeing the film 'empire of the sun' when i was 7 or 8 in the theater.
the song 'suo gan' has played a pretty important role in my life - i love
it so much. and the rest of the soundtrack has gorgeous choral music that
i have always been smitten with. i think aesthetically 'the virgin suicides' is one of the most beautiful films-- lots of kubrick, too - visually, he made my favorite films, hands-down. I, like everyone else, am a huge salinger fan. i could completely
visualize all of his books in my mind - like no other author- so wonderful.
my favorite book, though, is probably 'the fountainhead' by ayn rand. i,
for better or worse, love the idea of an individualistic mindset. doing
our best, making yourself better - i loved not only the story but the
themes in the book. that being said, i'd love to score a new version of 'the fountainhead' and a close second would be the short 'a perfect day for bananafish' from salinger's 'nine stories'.

Is ambient a dirty word? It always seems like it is.

...it connotes ugly things. but there's a lot of beauty in the 'ambient'
world.

Are you interested in scoring an actual choir?

YES. someday. yes.

Are there any forthcoming projects that we should be aware of?
i'm working on the next record, will have a song featured in the
forthcoming 'esopus 13 CD' (esopusmag.com), have a project going on
kickstarter.com to try and put the florine ep on vinyl
(http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/928045737/florine-ep-on-vinyl-limited-edition),
lots of shows stateside soon and everywhere else for spring.


Did I read somewhere that you've done some remixing?

Yes, i was asked by the people at XL to do a remix for radiohead's
'reckoner' and jack penate's 'tonight's today'.


*You must remember the Weird Tapes Inner-View?????