Can - The Lost Tapes - parrallels

I got a copy of "The Lost Tapes" by Can recently, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. A magnificent 3 CD box set of unheard Can material, a project seven years in the making.

The box comes as a 10" presentation (like a reel-to-reel tape box) and besides the CDs there is a book inside that contains liner notes by Irmin Schmidt (Can's keyboard player). At one point he is talking about a track called "Graublau" which was made for a film. He says:

"I wanted to find a sound design where the sounds and noises would mix with the soundtrack but also work on their own. At home I recorded hours of short wave radio and made loops to which we then all played together in the studio. In the editing room Peter Przygodda (the editor of the film) and I compiled the shortwave radio, the music and the fades between them and the film soundtrack. At some point the sound of a propeller plane became the sound of shortwaves in which would then slowly appear a groove: the noise of the motor turned into music."

Interesting parallels, of which I am proud..

Buy the box set (I command you):

http://mute.com/can/the-lost-tapes-out-now

Simon x

Simon's Photography Site

I have a new site for my photography work. I have always had a love of the British countryside and in particular it's woodland and coastal areas. The site features galleries of woodland photographs put together over eight months for an exhibition last year, as well as some recent work capturing coastal areas of Kent.

There are also galleries that feature some of my more abstract and urban photographs, and you may recognise some of these as they have been used for some of our cover artwork.

The site has an online shop, you can buy prints, framed or unframed and digital downloads for as little as 50p. It takes credit card payments and PayPal, and works in GBP, Euros, US & Canadian dollars.

I will be updating regularly and will also keep an occasional photography-centered blog over there. Please explore..

Thank you

Simon x

Remix of John Davis & The Monster Orchestra

I have done a remix (well, its more of a dub/edit) of John Davis & The Monster Orchestra's "Ain't That Enough For You". It was for a competition on Beatport, but to be honest I did it because it is a fabulous disco track and it was a lot of fun working with 24 channels of authentic disco material done by great musicians. It has horns, strings and loads of classic disco motifs.

I think everyone else in the competition is probably doing house/techno re-workings, but I preferred to mix it as it was, in a style that might have been done originally (with only minor Birch twists). I just added some dubs and edited it a bit, extending it to 6 mins 40s. I tried to create what I thought the people that dance at my parties would enjoy. I loved doing this, I hope you enjoy it too. Sod winning, I have had my prize already.

You can hear it here:

John Davis & The Monster Orchestra - Ain't That Enough For You (Simon Birch Dub)


Simon x

"6 Months Of Community Service" - new album out now

Our new album is out and you can download the whole thing for free (or donate)..

There are some extras when you download the whole album: 3 extra mixes (including the "Skint Mix" of "Lost A Grand"), plus 2 videos, full album artwork, album notes and a digital booklet. Play/share/download below.. hope you like x

New album out soon! "Six Months Of Community Service"

We have a new album out on July 21st on BandCamp. It is called "Six Months Of Community Service" and collects together eight tracks that were put out during the first six months of 2012 (plus an extra one).

The track listing is as follows:

1: Box (Dub Torpor): (7:41)
2: Tang (Pungent Mix): (8:02)
3: He Was A Chef He Was (Bubble & Squeak Mix): (5:29)
4: Wire Frame Ghost: (7:20)
5: Fat Deluge (Refried Mix): (6:53)
6: I Told You Not To Eat That: (6:17)
7: Transparency: (6:55)
8: Lost A Grand: (7:12)
9: Flap Flops: (6:45)

In total it's an hour long. Once again, it will be a "name your price" scenario, so you can download it for nothing, or donate..

We are aware that the keenest of you will already have downloaded some or most of these tracks over the last few months, but it is still worth downloading the album as a whole, because you get 3 extra tracks, full album artwork, a digital booklet and 2 videos thrown in.

You can download in pretty much any format too, from lossless FLAC to mp3 and so on..

We hope you enjoy it..

Here is the link: http://x-amount.bandcamp.com/

"Degraded" is still available too!

New track: Lost A Grand

The main voice in this says "since I started work, I must have lost a grand". This man was recorded on the 208 bus in South London and had plenty to say.

He had been going on about his life in the area. Clearly, he had been in trouble before, sleeping rough and taking drugs. I don't normally earwig in on people's conversations, but (and you can hear it in the track) he had a very penetrating voice and was sat right behind us upstairs. He pointed things out to his mate "I had a shag down there", and "I used to sleep in there, but they've tidied it up now. I woke up on fire once". He wasn't sure if it was falling asleep after doing a crack pipe that had caused the fire or whether his mates had set light to him.  For the bit put into the track, he was going on about being ripped off by credit card companies. "Since I started work, I must have lost a grand".

The crowd voices were recorded at a protest march by the Congolese people in Whitehall, London. They were marching in protest of thier leader, I must admit I do not know much about Congo. The signs people held seemed to say that rape and murder were going on on a massive scale at the hands of their government. My son Dillon and I wandered into this march by chance. I recorded sound whilst Dillon took photographs. We got a lot of useful material. The march wasn't on the news that day.

Both of these samples seem to reflect our current troubled times. the man on the bus is one of the people that our idiot leader really wants to go away. But he won't will he? Boris (the mayor of London) promised to rid the streets of London of people sleeping rough by the end of this year. It transpires that the figures are rising instead. Cameron wants to take their benefits away. They juggle the figures. Putting graduates into Poundland stacking shelves for no extra money except for the benefits they recieve. Cuts to education and the health services. Times of austerity they say. Yet if you taxed the mega-rich 20% of their income for a year (don't worry, it won't hurt them) it could generate something like 80 billion pounds. So, no need for cuts then. It drives you round the bend..

Other sounds: There are shortwave clips and some synth loops built by Andi using Figure on the iPhone and some built by myself using Logic, and some synthetics made using a clip of white noise that has been sent through filtering and modulation effects. There is also a treated recording of a digger on a building site.

This track might be the last in the series of free ones we have dished out this year (it is the 8th). What we plan to do next is add one more to the collection and put it out on BandCamp as an album with some extra stuff (artwork and bonus tracks).

There is plenty more to come too.. This will be followed by a second album of new material and some tracks from the archives... we also still hope to perform some some live work. This time in front of an audience and with some visual things as well..

We will keep you informed right here.

thanks for your support

Simon (& Andi).

Dark Matter & Light Shards: DJ mix

Dark Matter & Light Shards by X-Amt on Mixcloud

After a gloomy start to summer, a couple of disappointing gigs (in terms of turnout), but some fabulous new music coming out, I decided to try to combine all of this into a new mix. It has its dark moments, but stick with it, as there are shards of light too. Immerse yourself in sound. 

Mostly techno/ electronic but with jazzy, psychedelic and lo-fi vibes as well. Despite the dark content it is quite a chilled journey, with with a groove on. All of it either recent releases or faves from the last year.

I needed to try out the new version of the DJay software that I have as well. Fabulous it is too..

As Cameron continues his appalling hypocritical journey to completely destroy any hope for the future of our young people and artists, dark times are here. So we need these shards of light. I don't know about you, but his recent statements about "sorting out" those on benefits made my blood boil. He has clearly not thought it through (again), what about disabled people for example? And thats just the start of it all.. Plus, he himself and his lifestyle exists through handouts from his multimillionaire friends and family. Liar. Scumbag. Clueless out of touch moron.

Anyway!  I hope you enjoy this hour long eclectic mix, with its dark and light moments.

It begins with some ambient drone from the "V" album by KTL. I must admit, I don't like the whole album; the track at the end with the daft "scary" voice puts me off an otherwise interesting listen. I haven't put the whole twelve minute version in here, after about three minutes it mixes in to an Andy Stott track. "Work Gate" is from his brilliant "We Stay Together" LP from last year, which you can get coupled with the equally inspirational "Passed Me By". In my opinion one of the most interesting releases I have heard in a long time.

"V" KTL

The next track; Om Unit's "C66 Jam" came free with a recent Bleep/Sonar promotion. Its a trippy piece, reminding me of experimental synth days and stoned grooving. Lovely stuff. I will check out more by this lot.

Andi & I discovered the brilliant duo Sculpture recently and went to check them out live, where they were supporting a band fronted by Charles Hayward (Monkey Puzzle Trio). Sculpture did not disappoint. Mind boggling visuals generated on a turntable with a video camera and sounds built using tape loops and echoes. Well worth exploring live. The track here is a remix that they have done of a band called Snorkel using mostly tape loops. See the demonstration video below:


'this is what it's like most of the time'
'you could call it a showreel'



I have been slowly trying to collect everything by Floating Points. I love his vibe. Interesting electronics combined with tinges of jazz and weirdness. This track is from his "Shadows" album released last year. It was part of a collaborative project with a friend of his who used computer programming that studies drum machine and synth activity to generate visuals in real time (something I am interested in for X-Amount). Check out the video for the wonderful track "Sais":

One of my favourite albums is Luke Abbott's "Holkham Drones" and I was so pleased to see the new EP "Modern Driveway" come out a few weeks back. This track "Carrage" comes from it. He seems to get a unique feel from the very basic and minimal of sounds and techniques. Fascinating and beautiful.

Modern Driveway - Luke Abbott

The next track "Catnip" (by Lazercat/ Audit) is one of the more dance orientated, almost Nu-Disco tracks I got last week for a potential DJ set after a gig that never happened. I had plenty of new dance ready to go, but that will have to wait for the next opportunity (I couldn't resist adding one of them here)..

This leads into a new Four Tet track called "Ocaras", which is the B-side of his recent 12" "Jupiters". I have been really enjoying Four Tet and Daphni's output recently, but I wish more of it would be released digitally, those 12" are so bloody expensive and often hard to come by.

Another recent  album of forward-thinking electronica is "R.I.P" by Actress. I have been listening to this a fair bit (it sounds great in your ears on a train), "Shadow From Tartarus" is one of several tracks here I played during the breaks on our recent X-Amount radio show. The next track was also played on the show. A new discovery for me; Emika. "Chemical Fever" is a recent EP she put out on Ninja Tune.

I couldn't finish on that note this time, so I put on a lovely retro-sounding piece by Belbury Poly. Last year's "Belbury Tales" was gorgeous. Even the CD packaging and booklet was a joy. This track "Now Ends The Beginning" is from a new single out on Ghost Box where Belbury Poly and Advisory Circle cover each other's tracks. I love this vaguely remembered 1970s illusory feeling that they get on Ghost Box. A good positive way to finish.

Simon x