Track Of The Day

Brian's Track Of The Day for Wednesday 15th August 2018 is...

Marina Florance: 

This track was written by Marina Florance for the community project in Colchester organised by long time Ralph's Life favourite Johnno Casson called The Warn and Toasty Club after a performance there by Marina.



Marina recently worked with The Warm and Toasty Club, having been commissioned, along with co-writer Jules Fox Allen, to compose three songs based on the memories of residents at retirement complexes for the Coast To Coast Project. All three songs are now complete and you can support the wonderful work of The Warm and Toasty Club by buying the EP or one of the tracks. 

Marina Florance came to performing late in life, however, very soon after making the decision to "come out of the kitchen" to widen her audience she was awarded Arts Council funding, via the Escalator Project, to record a debut album, Somewhere Down The Line,using this as a platform she has since reached audiences never previously thought possible. 

She has had success with lots of radio play, including BBC6Music with Little Black Cloud and The Moon both of which were selected for the Tom Robinson Mixtape via 'Fresh On The Net'.

Feral Five ft: Sisteray 'Algorithm Prison - Video Of The Week

Brian's favorite video this week is Feral Five ft: Sisteray 'Algorithm Prison' Reconstructed, and it's one of the best single releases I've heard in the last two years! Post Electro Punk at it's absolute best!

Feral Five profess to playing Electro Punk Dance Music with snarling guitars, stabbing synths and ferocious beats, which they do in spades and this release is a tribute to that!

Fellow Londoners Sisteray (who were on the bill at the Ralph's Life CD launch in Proud Camden as were Feral Five) bring a fresh punky attitude to this single)





Sisteray are an in your face post-punk live band who from the first chord dominate from the stage and take the crowd on a whirlwind journey of musical joy and a perfect match for Feral Five on this single release.

Video Of The Week then for week commencing Monday 20th August. After a lifetime of listening to Pop Pap this is the real deal and deserves to dominate the airwaves and needless to say it's getting a spin on Brian's Next Radio KC Indie Show of Sunday 26th August 20th.

Equinox ft: Feral Five - Video Of The Week

Ralph's favourite video this week is Kiss by Equinox ft: Feral Five.

Taken from the album It's Hard To Be Happy When Your Head Is Full Of Sin available from Bandcamp.

The album features collaborations with:

Vince Clarke
Ashley Reaks 
Feral Five 
Dementio13 
Ceiling Demons 
Rosie Bans 
Snippet 
Radio Europa 
Nat Lyon 
Pulco 
Jay Stansfield 
Deux Furieuses 
Superhand 
Will Harris

Camera, lighting, editing and production by Jay Stansfield.

Benbo

Multi-instrumentalist and cartoonist Benbo is set to release his new single Gravity Pulls Me Down 22nd September via PKLZD.

Tipped by Pigeons & Planes, Eddy Temple Morris and BBC Introducing, and co-signed by Cooking Vinyl, the former London resident has flown the capital to somewhere in the north of the UK that he will only describe as ‘The Bunker’, where he has amassed over four days worth of unreleased music over a vault of various hard drives.

Gravity Pulls Me Down, the first cut off his forthcoming mini-album Everything Is Fine is an off-kilter, psychedelic tinged alternative pop wonder and Ralph will be playing it on the Radio KC Indie Show on Sunday 13th August.

Speaking about the track, Benbo said, “It’s about depression I think, how you can be feeling high because for once everything is going lovely and then something happens to puncture your happy feeling and you’re on your way back down to the ground. Also there’s something in there about true love, I used to think it was about true love winning in the end but upon listening to it again I’m not sure whether it’s actually about the love in question being unrequited.”

Breaking off from a long-time quest to complete the perfect debut album, the reclusive artist Benbo will release his his new 9-track mini-album Everything is Fine – a meticulously-crafted 20-minute alt-pop journey through space-fuelled plans to escape personal and global disaster - on the 29th September. 





Also included on the promo CD’s is Bleep This aka F This one of the album’s most radio friendly tunes (in edited form) that highlights just how caustic a ninety second pop fix can be, when you put your heart and soul into it.

The release will feature collaborations from the likes of long-time Ralph's Life favourite Kat Five of Feral Five fame, writer A.K. Benedict (Doctor Who) and audio collector Gr3n (Cathay Tapes); plus production/mix by Marta Salogni (Frank Ocean/MIA) and mastering by Grammy-winner Mandy Parnell (Björk) and Bob Macciochi (DJ Shadow).

Equinox

Ralph covered the book release by the mysterious Yorkshire poet Equinox last year with the promise that an album featuring works from the book would appear featuring collaborations with a range of musicians.

Well that time has come to pass as It's Hard To Be Happy When Your Head Is Full Of Sin is now available in digital and CD formats. 

Nothing overly unusual in that I hear you say, however Equinox has teamed up with a number of indie musicians (including a good few Ralph's Life favourites) to provide unique soundscapes to his spoken word. More unusual still is the track Goodnight Vienna which features the skills of none other than synth pop doyen Vince Clarke.




The written word of Equinox takes no prisoners with subject matter ranging from male suicide to prostitution but with equal amounts of undying love and devotion, and its setting to music overlaid with the Northern intonations of Equinox gives the work another more meaningful aural texture.

Twist my arm for a favourite track from an album that is as intriguing as it is clever and it'd have to be Kiss (sorry Vince) which features Feral Five with its sleazy electro back-beat giving it a radio-friendly disco feel.

Contributing artists are: Ashley Reaks, Feral Five, Dementio13, Ceiling Demons, Rosie Bans, Snippet, Vince Clarke, Radio Europa, Nat Lyon, Pulco, Jay Stansfield, Deux Furieuses, Superhand and Will Harris.

Feral Five

Art © Tracey Moberly™

It's hard to believe that it was as far back as 2013 when Ralph first came across Feral Five and they donated a track to the Ralph's Life CD for the mental health charity Rethink. 

At that time they'd just released their debut EP Skin to great acclaim and it was the lead track that was included on the Ralph's Life CD.

Nearly four years down the line, Feral Five have produced another 'banger' of a CD and March 31st sees the official release of Man Cat Doll Machine (I'll forgive them not calling it Man Dog Doll Machine) with some splendid artwork by Tracey Moberly who's previously collaborated with Banksy and Bill Drummond.

Simon Mooney, © National Portrait Gallery, London.

The EP was fused together in response to an invitation to perform at the Martin Ware 'Everything You Can Imagine Is Real' Late Shift at the National Portrait Gallery in London recently.

Lead track Man Cat Doll Machine is a synth infused gem full of dynamic basslines behind Kat's soaring vocal and Ralph's got the track playlisted for the Radio KC Indie Show on April 12th.





There's a Launch Party prior to the official release date in Oslo, Hackney on March 25th with full visuals and I'm sure Feral Five will be on fine live form (did I mention that they played a storming set at the Ralph's Life CD launch party in London's Proud Camden) for the occasion. 

Given that the Man Cat Doll Machine EP is full of heavy yet danceable techno pop vibes, anyone that's there on the night is in for a rare treat as Feral Five blend the best of 80's synthpop into a contemporary soundscape for the modern day listener. You know me, I don't do marks out of...but if I did?  10/10.

Feral Five

Ralph's been a long-time fan of Feral Five, especially as they performed at his Proud Camden launch for the Ralph's Life CD for mental health charity Rethink. So it's with great pleasure that I can bring you news of a shiny new single from the London electro duo.

Rule 9 is a unique collaboration between Feral Five and Francis Bitonti, the world's leading designer working in 3D printing and future materials – it’s electronic #datapop.

The kicking catwalk dance track takes you inside the sonic world of 3D printing, using Bitonti’s sound files made from the Rule 9 algorithms he uses to generate materials and geometric forms at his design studio. 

Feral Five developed the mechanised yet organic production-line feel from the sonic generative geometry, and created new Rule 9s too - using nine different languages for the vocals, including Icelandic, Mandarin and Russian, and sculpting with synths and beats.

“This collaboration speaks to the nature of digital work, it’s all data,” says Bitonti.

New York-based Bitonti is the design visionary behind the legendary Dita Von Teese 3D printed gown, and Feral Five have worked in 3D too, with a song about 3D printing humans, featuring 3D printing samples and artwork. Admiring each others’ work, they met in London and hatched a collaboration plan.

As Francis builds future design worlds and new material languages with computation, Feral Five work within that same universe to create new sound worlds, with echoes of construction, and the background radiation of the 3D cultural ‘big bang’.

Francis says, “Music or a chair we can map those patterns onto sound waves or materials. This collaboration highlights how digital technologies are flattening these creative disciplines.”

Feral Five say, "Francis’s sounds are striking, beautiful and hypnotic, and the sound waves like no music we have ever seen."