FLY Magazine - Catch of the Day 1 Review

Europe: Reviews
Mundane Music / Sanjuro 77 - 'Catch Of The Day 1'

Now this is certainly one you can’t gripe about the cover; hand crafted corrugated cardboard with inner sleeve and fish cartoons all for a two-track CD at £1.99!

What are they going to do when the full album comes out? We’ll have to wait for that one as the Kipper Record’s plan is to operate solely over the Internet. However, whilst their trawler is still capturing artists to add to the ‘fish pie’ they tell us this CD is ‘tiddler’ of a sampler.

Fish, pies and Manchester all sound Mr. Scuff like but these two tracks have a film style bird theme to their titles. Mundane Music says his influences include Four Tet, John Martyn and Aphex Twin whilst Sanjuro 77’s brand of ILM (Intelligent Listening Music) comes from a love of Boards Of Canada, Radiohead and that Aphex Twin (snap).

Both go for the cinematic instrumental approach. ‘The Woeful Pelican’ starts with a recording of songbirds as I suppose it’s a bit difficult to find a Pelican in Manchester. It quickly bangs into a folktronic march over the marshes. It builds with the mass horn section of the Spartacus soundtrack before fading out with the birds backed by an acoustic guitar. It’s something prog rockers Camel might have done if they were starting out today and could have contained themselves to a single track less than 5 minutes long. Back in 1975, that was not possible and if you dare, hunt out the album Snow Goose (in all good secondhand bargain bins).

There’s a similar feel to ‘In The Company of Crows’ as it also starts off with the sound of birds (well a crow actually) with the scratched-jump of an old vinyl record. Again, it builds as it develops with a child-voice sample and lo-fi electronica into a dark ambient jam with layers of acoustic guitar and strings. Clearly fans of Ninja Tune’s, more Cinematic Orchestra than jazz-based new boys Loka.

If you’re into one, then you’ll be into both.

The aim of the label is to promote such ‘unheard’ artists and Catch Of The Day 2 is due out soon. It again features Mundane Music and Sanjuro77 on the eight tracks together with The Deep Element, DJ Wise, Dupe, Edmund Coleman, The Gray and Scott Bruzenak. So get down to the harbour ready for when the boat comes in; er..I mean keep an eye on the web site (see links below).

Reviewed: V/A — Catch Of The Day (Kipper Records) Cat. No. kipper 1 Release date: September 2005
Tracklisting:
1. Mundane Music — The Woeful Pelican (4:52)
2. Sanjuro 77 — In The Company Of Crows (7:38)

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