The Big C

Last Updated on June 1, 2023

Code: Foetus 3

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Gygno

Holly created guitar and bass. Bass was played by Doomage on this, Holly guitar. The rinkity-dinkity synth and plain distorted organ solo were added by Strangely with words and the original singing from Haircut. But we got fed up with his singing so Strangely did it, better. Certainly on this one. Gary invented the fantastic drums instantly. It’s a very precise piece with thrashing guitars mixed well back from the starting noise and stuff. Strangely uses the proximity effect on the microphone and stressed sibilance on the tape-echoed vocal. Doomage set the bass guitar sound up brilliantly and the drums come through nicely, especially the toms.  2023.

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Urbane Encounter

Doomage riff inspired. Strangely orchestrated. Lyrics came from the early days from Crowe, Fenn & Rees. Nightmare in Eldon Square Shopping Centre. Played at virtually every gig. Took 3 years to record properly…Laziness I guess.  2023, played to fix the stereo image and tonal qualities.

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Wee Jimmy (Part II)

Strangely made. Re-jigged for daftness.
EFS kind of piece. Fairgrounds and Tom & Jerry are in this as well as classical diminished descents. Jim from Derrim let us down with his tape deck. So he got a daft tune named after him.

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Worms

Originally created as a jam  – Doomage guitar rambling jam was voiced over round his mum’s place by Strangely who didn’t have any instruments or gear at the time. Developed and recorded at the Pits using special one-hit super-stereo echo on the drum toms as an experiment. I can smell the worms coming, Hah!  I made a Youtube video back along – petty naff (SP).

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The Katrina Syndrome

Strangely made the repeating boopelly doop descending riff on a synth and the rest of the track built up from there.  It has shades of a European train journey in it…. and Gerry Anderson’s Stingray, a South African gent, etc

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Friends

Created by Strangely with extra clangy Crawling Chaos additions. Originally derived as a cross between “”Baby You’re so Repulsive” by “Crime” and “Andy Warhol” by David Bowie. Samples to compare are here.

Holly has bunged a live video on YouTube called Friends.  This is segments from a live show at Newcastle University put to the audio from another location….  Bastard Darco sound systems fucked my left ear and I can see myself swearing at the foldback to turn it down – in the end I yanked the wire from the speaker cabinet. (see video, SP I now have tinnitus, bastards. )

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Jhonn’s Angel

Doomage invention.
The vocals can be approached in many ways. This is one way.  Despite the title, it’s not anything to do with top ligga

As with D.S.S. below we squeezed a bit of usage of a hired delay into this track.  However, it was after this that drummer Clennel blotted his copybook by coming in pissed at night and accidentally wiping part of the left channel of the mix at the beginning.  At the time a furious Jeff and Rees had a to bodge it over into a mono and then spread the sound as it reached the good bit of tape.

For the version here I’ve added to it a bit more using some Reaper.  However, it’ll never be as good as the duffed up bit from Clinka which had a beautiful fade in.

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The Vulva Boatman

Obviously a Russian-inspired E.F.S. with a sexual pun and a false ending.

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Fraüline Le Moîne

Jeff started us off on this one with his guitar chords. Paul has excellent double-tracked vocals which he did with nae bother. Of note is “The Deuchars”, a pub in Backworth which has now been turned into flats…. The barman’s hair was so greased up with lacquer that his hair “clacked” when he bent down to collect glasses…also see Ashen on Homunculus Equinox.

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D.S.S.

First played ‘live’ at Nenthead, probably.  Pretty sure it came about with Jeff messing around on the bass guitar, which he plays on it, and it developed from there.

There’s only one way to listen to this track – at the threshold of pain.  Why?

A. During the period when this track was recorded we actually hired (yes really) a digital delay device for a short time and added it to a few tracks.  This is one. It was a steep learning process. I [SP] progressively added layers and layers of delay through the track which was mixed at almost pain volume. Some delays were several seconds long and they took all our hands to close down near the end as can be heard. Vocals were added in the final mix, mostly Jeff’s.

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Skaill

Neat jam played twice, one at 2x speed. Stopwatch timed to finish concurrently. PLAY LOUD.

From an atmospheric and powerful jam between Doomage and Strangely.
It was so good that the only addition needed was itself speeded up two times. It was copied onto another tape and then the fast one started at the correct time to finish concurrently with the slow (normal) one using a stopwatch. EQ and volumes were adjusted to suit the feel and pace. The piece sounded sea-like and Orcadian or Skerry-ish tied to the sound of ages. We pulled the right-sounding title from an atlas of the Orkneys, which is here. It’s quite close to Skara Brae.

I’ve turned the bass up even more here. It’s almost impossible to get it to sound like the PA in the room otherwise. It was done in a few hours in Tynemouth.  This 2023 version even more EQ twiddling as I like the pulsing hissing-scratching background noises like some sort of mechanical insects.

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