Karl Blake

I searched and can't believe there's no thread dedicated to the wonders of Karl Blake and his various projects. It's been a while since he put anything out and mostly nowadays he spends his time wandering about London, settling scores with people from bands he used to be in, particularly Tony Wakeford who he played with for a long time. I really hope he puts something else out, as this is a waste of a great musical mind. I think my favourite thing he's done that I've heard so far is the Lemon Kittens album The Big Dentist that he did with Danielle Dax, but I've been playing the Shockheaded Peters' Not Born Beautiful album a lot lately. They're both great records and there's something otherworldly about his voice.

Oath from The Big Dentist in particular is really striking a chord with me for various reasons:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Nfb88BZofU
The way it turns into a New Orleans funeral march at the end surprises me every time even though on my hundredth or so reason I know it's coming. It's the sort of thing which shouldn't work but really does. In another world, The Hospital Hurts The Girl was and is filling dancefloors with clockwork regularity.

What does everyone else think?

love it all

Cake Beast is my fave Lemon Kittens record, mostly for "Kites" but the B-sides are strong as well

"What The Cat Brought In" was re-recorded for the Terra Serpentes comp, search the original on the Wonderful World Of Glass comp

"Scorch" EP probably my favorite SHP release, totally killer. he always got these prog-rock ringer types to play on his weird rock/art/experimental records.

search also: The Underneath LP "Lunatic Dawn Of The Dismantler", unhinged genius. EP not as good.

and the Evil Twin CD, also stunning and long overdue tor a reissue, my WSD copy has disc rot.

lots of good stuff on him in the England's Hidden Reverse book, he was central to a lot of that early stuff

For this video alone, a legend.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MisfJux-dek

oh my GOD, never seen that

another totally classic tune, obvs.

It surfaced out of nowhere a couple of years ago. Needless to say, brilliant.

Ah I Bloodbrother Be, what a song. What a bass line too.

I've read England's Hidden Reverse several times, it's something of a comfort read actually. The obsession some people have with Warhol's Factory or Factory records or whatever, that whole scene of DIJ, C93, Coil, NWW and other acronyms is just it for me. Even better, these people are accessible and happy to talk about it if you reach out to them in my experience. Karl seems to want to distance himself from a lot of that now though: having played in Sol Invictus for nearly 20 years the dodginess of some of the people Wakeford had been involved with all got too much for him and obviously fair play to him but he left at the point where Sol weren't doing any of the nudge-nudge stuff like Against The Modern World (Evola referencing) or Long Live Death with all its Spanish fascist references anymore.

Interesting reading on that:
http://www.whomakesthenazis.com/2011/06/karl-blake-comments.html

It's a shame he does disown some of the great stuff he's been involved with: it sounds like its his input that makes the Sol Invictus stuff he plays on as musically interesting as it is when it's not dwelling on some imagined Europa. That mutant funk bassline he plays on Looking For Europe springs to mind.

Seems like he does a lot of "bass player but only for live shows" gigs. Have you heard the spoken word CD? Also I forgot about the Reflections LP with ATV folks (Slugs & Toads), I need to relisten to that. Prehensile Tales, his only true solo LP, is good. There's also a disc of what sound like demos, Paper Thin Religion. The material by British Racing Green still tantalizingly unreleased.

I love his spoken word CD! He's such a great lyricist and the combination of the backdrops he puts them to and his speaking voice makes me think of Chris Morris' monologues in Blue Jam.