The past month has seen a fair few new faces cropping up about the site, so allow us to make some introductions...

The man responsible for the recent slew of live music reviews from the city of São Paulo is Martin Longley, seasoned scribe for The Wire and The Independent, and sites such as bbc.co.uk and The Stirrer. Martin is currently hanging out in Fes, taking in the sights and sounds of the 13th annual World Sacred Music Festival. Lucky git.

Those who frequent the darker corners of London's electronic music scene will most likely have bumped into Derek Szeto, aka Stormfield of Combat Recordings. Derek recently interviewed purveyor of messed-up robot rave music Milanese — you can read the piece here.

A warm welcome to Bristol's John Sevens, who reported back on the first ever Bloc Weekend — the two-day festival that took place earlier this year in the chilly confines of Pontin's holiday camp, Hemsby, UK. You can read his amusing and applaudably coherent coverage here.

A large glass of sherry to Jon Weinel, who dons his magick space cape and dives headfirst into the brain-rattling sounds of La Peste and the Hangars Liquides label. La Peste (Laurent Mialon) has a cult following in the area of extreme electronic music, and we're pleased to host this in-depth article on his work, together with a selection of audio clips from Hangars Liquides.

A glass of glögg and a steaming plate of meatballs to Tim Claxton and Daniel Blewitt, who bring a taste of Sweden to Spannered with two reports on street art from Stockholm. Check out our gallery of sticker art snapped around the Swedish capital, and take a peek at the wonderful bird box art of the mysterious Klister Pete.

A carafe of rosé to Porto's Soopa crew, who are shortly to come aboard the site with regular text and audio contributions. These guys possess a far-reaching knowledge of Portuguese language music, which they will be passing on to you lucky people over the coming months.

A huge custard pie in the face to Edward Blake, who readers of the Overload Media site may remember for his obnoxious record reviewing style. Well, look out, because he's been rummaging through the post at Spannered's PO box. PR companies take note — send us rubbish and we may well send it to him.

And finally, a special mention to Jonny Polonsky, who contributed book reviews to Musicalbear, which can now be found in the Spannered archive. Jonny is behind The Voice of Slavery, an ongoing project established to increase awareness of modern day slavery and to raise funds for various charities working in the area. For more details about the project's aims and those involved, head over to the website here.

Remember, we'd love to hear from anyone wishing to contribute to the site. If you'd like to write for Spannered, or perhaps contribute something you've already written to the archive, get in touch!

Better late than never. Yes, the second instalment of Spannered's Oddcast series is finally with us. Not so much mixed as glued together with burbs and nob gags, Oddcast 2 stumbles drunkenly through the door courtesy of Spannered collaborator Uberdog. There are lots of goodies in there: Wevie Stonder, Exile, Squirrel Nut Zippers and Rolf Harris, to name a few. If you've got 24 minutes of your life to spare, we recommend you head over to Radio Spannered and give it a listen.

We mentioned in Spannered's blog a while back that the second Oddcast was to be a 'Bristol' special. Well, clearly that didn't happen, but its still in the pipeline. Watch this space. If you're a Bristol-based artist and you'd like to submit a track for possible inclusion, drop us a line!

 

 You can listen to Spannered's January 07 Oddcast here

Virada Cultural roughly translates as 'having a cultural bender'. From 6pm Saturday 5 May until 6pm Sunday, São Paulo's council laid on exactly that, with over 350 cultural happenings, at 85 sites around the city. More than three million people turned up for what was essentially one of the world's biggest 24-hour free parties.

This year's Virada Cultural fell on the same weekend as Brazil's largest annual electronic music event. Skol Beats 2007 had an impressively dull line-up, and the organisers, Ambev, watered it down even more by putting on two nighttime events instead of just one. Whatever happened, attendance was down a pint-dropping 20,000 heads or so — little more than loose change for the largest brewer in Latin America, but a bad case of brewer's droop for their image in Brazil.

Anyway, back to Virada Cultural. Walking around downtown São Paulo after dusk is ill-advised, let alone stumbling about with a beer in one hand, camera in the other at four in the morning. Due to safety in sheer numbers, however, Virada Cultural was a chance to bumble about between the centre's magnificent buildings during the darkness hours, taking in performances by some of the country's most famous musicians, and dancing to jazz, techno and tango in the city's crowded praças.

 

 

Oh, right, we’ve got a blog on this site, yes. Probably about time we wrote some words in it.

 

Barely midway through and already this month Baudrillard has left the building, Bush has banned careless talk about polar bears, and a mechanic from the west of England has had sex with 30 cars, two motorboats and a jetski. Here at Spannered such grand announcements are rather thin on the ground, though we would like to extend a warm welcome to two new contributors — Judith Evans, who looks into the Iggulden brothers' recent publishing phenomenon, and Lady Chatterley, who visits the Tate Modern to find out if you really can polish a turd. Remember, if you’re interested in contributing to Spannered, we’d love to hear from you.

 

Audio mixes and fixes

Some great new mixes have found their way to us over the last week or so, and we’ve taken the opportunity to dig out some old ones too. First up, to accompany Spannered’s interview with Steve Taylor and Laszlo Beckett, the Hand on the Plow label has pasted together a dope 12-minute megamix — Jive Bunny-style — to give Spannered readers an earful of their catalogue to date. We’re also rather honoured that techno superstar Surgeon has taken time to lock himself away and curl out an exclusive set for the site, that we happen to think is one of his best ever (yeah yeah, we would say that). For those of you wanting something a little less cerebral, we unreservedly recommend you check Gary Weasel’s Marinade a la Tete mix — a 40-minute cab ride through Stupidsville, spanning Wevie Stonder to Derek & Clive. After a little rummaging about in the bowels of the Musicalbear server we’ve also unearthed a cracking pair of dancehall-rich mixes from London’s Heatwave crew, re-hosted here and here, along with a crucial 50-minutes of apocalyptic rhythms from maverick mixer-upper-of-records DJ /rupture.

If, like us, you’re soaked to the skin and struggling for air under the rising tide of podcasts, mixes and other freebie audio presently bubbling out of the web, head across to Wayne&Wax, where Wayne kindly pulls together his current recommendations into one handy list, should you wish to pimp up your ‘pod or whatever. We’re honoured he saw fit to include Spannered in the roll call, and will be PayPalling him ten pounds shortly. We’re also pleased as punch to announce that the next Oddcast will take the form of a 'Bristol special', chock full of exclusives and other goodies from city artists. The selection is being lovingly crafted with the help of Punksi from Bashout — if you’re a resident of Bristol and would like to submit a track for consideration, get in touch!

 

Okay, we know it’s not very down with the kids, but we’ve disabled the ability to hotlink directly to multimedia content on our servers — the simple reason being that much of it is connected to an interview, review or feature, and we’d rather people appreciated the site’s audio and video in context. If you're after an MP3 just visit the appropriate page on the site and you’ll find a glaringly obvious download link in the top right corner. So please don’t host Spannered’s mixes elsewhere, as there’s really no need. Alright? Good.

 

The Brazilian connection

Spannered is currently running on a London/São Paulo axis, which is why you may have noticed some articles cropping up in both English and Portuguese. Over time we hope you’ll be seeing a fair bit of Brazilian content dotted around the site. This month we’re pleased to host a gallery of photos from downtown São Paulo, shot by Brazilian photographer Nayana Fernandez. Speaking of which, we feel compelled to mention this inspired design clash that came about through a recent Brazil-Argentina footy match… That's right, nob gags get plenty of mileage the world over.

 

Back in the UK, electronic music fans deserve a swift kick in the arse if they haven't purchased a ticket to the Bloc Weekend. Curated under the watchful eyes of the Baselogic crew, the event, taking place on the 23-25 March is the best line-up you’re likely to see anywhere in Britain all year, and will no doubt have the staff at Pontins in Hemsby curled up in foetal positions under heaps of rave detritus. If you haven't got a ticket, head over to their site to see who’s playing — and then weep like a big baby, cos it's totally sold out. Check back for Spannered’s review of the ensuing carnage.

And Finally...

 

What blog post would be complete without a YouTube clip or three?

 

Laters.

Spannered's long awaited Oddcast made its debut last night on Resonance FM's Decibel Breach show, this week presented by Adverse Camber and the legendary Keith Harding. In fact a selection of sets from Radio Spannered were played on Resonance through the night.

You'll like the Oddcast: a positively tantalising collection of great tunes spanning bluegrass, folk, electronica, jazz, hip hop, tinklecore and sundry subliminal wrongness. It's got something for everyone, we promise. And it gets delivered straight to your computer absolutely free each month.

 Get the first Oddcast here!
 Listen to an MP3 of the Decibel Reach show (27.01.2007)

Also, we'll be commencing our newsletter within the next couple of weeks, so please sign up on the homepage!

Well, that’s just about it for 2006 – another year dogged by wars, corruption, floods, pestilence, Paris Hilton and social networking sites.

But wait, we’re not really a bunch of utter miserablists — and to prove it we’ve a trio of stocking fillers in the form of a video showcase from Brighton’s uber-talented Nothing To See Here crew. First up, there’s the spanking new Scotch Hausen video from the inimitable DJ Scotch Egg; we’ve also got pottymouthed cop baiting from Aussie mentalists Kunt and Scorpio Scorpio, and to top it off you're all exclusively invited to a champaign-swilling, gak-snorting strip session, soundtracked by Brighton’s electro-punks South Central. We thoroughly enjoyed these three shorts and we hope you will too.

Having only been around five minutes it’s a little bit wanky to start dishing out prizes, but a big gold spanner goes to V/Vm’s James Kirby, who is currently clawing his way to the end of his monumental V/Vm 365 project. For those of you who haven’t dipped into his marathon music giveaway during 2006, we suggest you take a trip over to his site and give the man some support during the final stretch of his crippling swansong project. And if you haven’t read his recent job application to Warp Records, pour yourself a sherry and click here.

Merry Christmas. Have a good one.

Sent: Thursday, December 14, 2006
Subject: V/Vm :Re: UK product assistant at Warp

Hello Sir Whippy-Warpy-Warpers,
 
i would like to offer my services to you in a working capacity as i love to work hard and think i could turn help turn things around at Warp.
 
Your main man Stevie Buscuit will know me from back in the days when Warp used to release cutting edge audio and i am sure will welcome my input as your all new and shiny UK Product assistant as unlike most of the cocaine snorters you employ i actually know a little bit about the progression of the U.K. electronic music scene. As i am currently winding my own operation down for a little while i figure this job opportunity is the one for me and i can start on January the 3rd, 2007 and it's best to strike while the iron is still hot and what better way for me to finish up at V/Vm than by starting a new role at Warp in the new year.
 
As we already have an excellent working relationship, through your stocking of V/Vm releases at Warp Mart and excellent distirbution of my MP3's at Bleep i figure there is real positive springboard there for further advancement and a joining of forces to become the biggest and best there is.
 
I have a number of ideas to help you to back to the top and to help ensure that we hear more Boards of Canada music when there are gay scenes on T.V. (like on the recent hollyoaks show) and to keep making all Warp music the soundrack to every U.K. T.V. documentary about something a bit wrong.
 
Firstly i am assuming the position is based in the lovely city of Sheffield ? I notice when i type Warp in google it states you are a Sheffield Techno label and i think this is a wonderful thing. I am sure there have been many temptations to move your operation to London, but remaining in the North is testimony to the vision and dedication to remain independent from the London scene which i hear isn't all that good.
 
I have already actively started looking for a bedsit in Sheffield and can't wait for those fun staff nights we will have at the Owlerton Stadium on dogs night, or taking in some of the nightlife down there on the mean streets down in the red light district by the Grapes. It's going to be a lot of fun working with you all and we are sure gonna have a lot of laughs on our social nights out.
 
I won't bother sending a CV in because i am sure i already got the job as i will show below using your own requirements and adding in my own experience below. I heard that usually at Warp it kind of helps if you know someone. Stevie i know thinks of me like a brother, his own brother N>E>D infact so i am sure you can't wait to start working with me. I also remember fondly his only U.K. hit "dirty cash" and play it every single day of the year. Anyway here's some examples of why i got the job already and start on January 3rd.
 
- working with promo teams, agents and distributors
 
Over the last ten years i have worked with the biggest and best names out there including you and some of your artists already so this box is ticked based on my back catalogue work alone. There is nothing, nothing i like more than working with Promo Teams and agents. These are my people, they represent everything i am and i love the fact most of them know where to get good crack cocaine. Snorting in the toilets with them on a night out or before a power meeting is one of my biggest strengths and essential in the modern music industry.
 
- controlling budgets
 
Yeah, yeah as Abba once sang "money, money, money always sunny in the rich mans world". I started V/Vm on 300 pound notes and still have 300 pound notes so i can control a budget and make shit happen on a shoestring which where maximum profits (you are all about them) are concerned makes me the total winner in the last ten years on the music scene. I would love to get access to your accounts and work out a series of promotion campaigns. I can send you my detailed campaign for the next Autechre album and it doesn't even break the thirty six pound barrier. I am good at keeping costs to a minimum and getting maximum impact.
 
- overseeing advertising
 
In all the years of V/Vm i have never placed an advert but would now given your backing propose an advertising campaign based on your use of Warp music on T.V. shows. For example there is a big market for sexually confused teenagers and the recent use of Boards of Canada music to promote this confused feeling on Hollyoaks could be exploited on a nationwide billboard campaign. Overseeing sounds great though, i would love to oversee something. Does this mean i have a team of coke heads who will go to Designers Republic and get some of the latest in cutting edge adverts which then have to be placed in the coolest magazines ? Wow that sounds unreal. Count me in. I am your advertising king. Not only that i also think there's a place for a WARP style "been injured in an accident" advert campaign where those who have been injured and are seeking compensation are offered free Jimmy Edgar discs and given a half price discount on Jackson and Clarke albums based on them showing proof of their claim and/or injury.
 
- Organising & hiring equipment, travel planning
 
Oh I love a good trip so am happy to plan some travel for your artists. I believe there are some excellent one way deals to some places, so if there's someone you don't like i would be happy to book them a non return ticket to the middle of nowhere. I also have an excellent hiring record when it comes to equipment and know a team of people who could probably rob what you need thus cutting down on long term hiring costs and keeping profits up and up and up and up. Recently i planned a great day out and it went really well so thanks for asking the question.
 
- Sales and market analysis
 
I love sales, i am totally motivated to make sure everything i ever do sells real well and can be seen in every shop. Go into London now with Stevie Biscuit and i promise you will see V/Vm releases everywhere in prominent positions in all of the high street stores. Even in Harrods these days there is actually a V/Vm section close to the Mohammed Al fayed's english sasauge stand. Market analysis is also something i love, predicting trends before they happen so i can cash in by getting an artist to copy the latest style is my kind of heaven. I loved the way you identified for instance that the world needed a more edgey Jamiroquai and hey presto there he was, Jamie Liddell. This is why you guys are the best and keep making a lot of money. You are my heroes and i just can't wait to be working with you all, we are gonna have so much fun in the Steel City spending real pound notes on bad drugs.
 
- Distribution of Promotional materials.
 
This will be a pleasure. I propose to just drop all of your new releases in random places and give them to the coolest people out there to create a BUZZ. I think really you could be doing more to make the elderly aware of products. This is an area Warp have failed to target, the grey generation who love a little bit of melody and entertainment. I propose a distribution deal with SAGA and also Help The Aged to begin with and possibly a deal with the United Kingdom pensions people so maybe a couple of times a year when it's pension day a free Warp sampler is given to everyone collecting their money. I think some designers republic Warp slippers to go with their winter fuel payments would be a nice touch. As you can see i am full of exciting and advanced ideas for your marketing campaigns and can be the spark to start the fire down there in your Sheffield Office.
 
To wrap this up as i know you've probably been inundated with applications from friends and relations but i am that certain the job shall be mine that I have already booked a one way ticket to Sheffield station and will be there at 11pm on the 3rd of January to start work. One request i do have is that it might be a good idea to have my desk out of eyeshot of Stevie B's desk to begin with as the temptation to shit in his desk drawer or shit on one of those lucrative television contracts maybe too much to ignore, but that feeling i promise will fade, once i am brainwashed into believing the cult of Warp/EMI.
 
I am sure you can convert me and pray we will be together soon in Sheffield, surrounded by the hills and not too far away from the moors.
 
Many thanks for your time and i look forward to starting work with you soon. As for a salery i am prepared to start work on the simple sum of £6.66 per hour which will rise when the feeling that i want to empty my bowels in Steve Beckett's drawer has subsided.
 
All the very best of luck with your sales upto Christmas (i love the recent retrospective push and lookback at 2006 - it's nice that you look back and there's an option right there to buy once again everything you have released this year) Looking towards the next calender year i wish you all the very best at Warp for now and forever and ever and ever and ever.
 
Your new employee starting 3rd of January (will Steve meet me at the station??)
James Kirby
X
www.brainwashed.com/vvm

What's all this nonsense about spanners?

Sneaking at the end of 2006, Spannered is borne of two websites you may have stumbled upon during the noughties: Musicalbear and Overload Media. Both have now packed up shop, but we’ve spent the last few months busily compiling the very best of their archives here, under one roof, along with a stack of freshly Spannered features, interviews and audiovisual content. Mutate to survive and all that.

Like the aforementioned sites, Spannered isn’t about making ourselves a pot of cash; it’s about raising the profile of music, art, film and literature that exists outside of the mainstream bubble; it's about offering a platform to writers, spreading a little mp3 love, and so forth.

If you contributed to Overload Media or Musicalbear and don’t want your work to appear on Spannered, send us £20 and some fags and we’ll remove it. No, seriously, drop us an email and tell us whassup.

As our archive has been compiled from different sources, you may encounter the odd typo or formatting error while everything beds in — do let us know so we can iron out all the niggles. Please note that for readability's sake some items in the archive have been edited since last appearing online. More information about Spannered's archive can be found here.

So, what's new?

A fair swedge as it goes. Bruna Rocha put questions to North America's DJ Ripley and South America's Fulerô O Esquema. We have words and music from Neil Landstrumm, Bass Clef and Hanuman, plus exclusive audio from Filastine, Surgeon and El Kano. Ron Beverage visits London's Oxo Tower and Gordon Ramrod takes a trip to York. There are galleries, book reviews, music reviews... the list goes on.

And what's old?

Now there's a question! Our archives stretch back as far as 2000, so we won't try to shoehorn it all into a nutshell here. Suffice to say you'll find a tasty cross-section of music, film and literature from the past six years, together with wisdom, rants and ramblings of a more diverse nature. We suggest you go off and explore.

Forthcoming on Spannered...

Over the next couple of weeks we’ll be publishing an in-depth interview with a certain south London luminary, we’ll be welcoming the delightful Tabatha Crotch to the team, and there's going to be a smorgasbord of video and artwork landing in our Spannervision section for you to feast your goggles on. Not to mention RSS feeds, the first Oddcast, more mixes…

Become a spanner in the works!

We accept content submissions for inclusion in the Spannered archives. If you have an article, interview or other written content you would like to send us as an unsolicited contribution, please get in touch.

Enjoy.

The Spannered team, December 2006

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