Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Label: Pumf Records
Cat No.: PUMF 889
Format: CD Album
Formerly guitarist with the excellent and underrated Ceramic Hobs, Stan Batcow’s Howl In The Typewriter continue to ooze originality and idiosyncratic genius.
How to describe Howl In The Typewriter? If you said a mix of Zappa, Beefheart, The Fall and Wire it wouldn’t really be close. Throw in a bit of Stockhausen, Bleep & Booster, Derek Bailey and The Residents and you may be getting nearer.
Shut Your Mouth And Open Your Mind veers from Dub reggae to minimalist synth psychedelia but that’s not really helpful is it? Likewise the subject matter could be a construct of a parallel universe with it’s own language inside the fabulously creative mind of Stan Batcow.
I can hear a legion of ‘Howl’ fans scoffing as they read this “You mean you don’t already know about Futenzoku? This is their 3rd appearance!” and “This is the second album in the Puaka Balava series you idiot!”
Similarly with the vocals. “Didn’t you know you had to play them in reverse and then pass them through a high frequency filter, tut, tut”.
Originality is often hard to convey in words alone. Put it this way, Artificial Intelligence will probably develop in such a way that when someone asks it to provide a clone of, say, some Coldplay music, it will probably say “Go away I’m using all my algorithmic power to try and decipher Howl In The Typewriter”. Then it will probably produce a gazillion versions of Coldplay in a nanosecond to try and get rid of the irritation of mediocrity.
After listening to the 70 odd minutes of sonic delights on here, the rest of your music collection may start to look a little bit boring. Try Pernama, Captain Staunchwithers’ Unexpected Visit or the aforementioned Futenzoku for starters.
It’s slightly overwhelming to note that this is catalogue number PUMF889. It is going to be a pleasurable but very long process going through the back catalogue!
Find Howl In The Typewriter at Pumf Records
4.5 out of 5.0 stars
