Colonel Awkward

  In my frequent meanderings around the internet looking for new music, I occasionally stumble across a site or a label or an artist and think "yeah!" Very recently I was contacted by a lovely gent called Andy who offered me the digital preview files of the latest releases on his Misophonia label. I investigated and hell yeah! I then learnt that this recent batch of releases were to be his last...hell no! I didn't pry too much as he seemed pretty gutted talking about it but it would seem Brexshit  has a lot to do with it - it really is the gift that keeps on taking. Anyway, in this recent batch is this absolute peach of an album by Kehrschliefe. The name rang some very distant bells then I remembered they (he) had had a single on the mighty Polytechnic Youth label way back and further investigations revealed that Kehrschliefe is actually Allan Murphy, the bod behind the wonderful Midwich Youth Club. What we have here is a pseudo concept album (not that rancid Rick Wakemen...

  This was one of those rare times I bought something unheard, mainly because I absolutely gobble up pretty much everything The Rowan Amber Mill (RAM) put out, the last being the wonderful 'Harrowed By The Stones'.  RAM have cornered the market in two aspects: the 'imaginary' soundtrack and 'folk horror' (or 'Witchfolk' or 'alt-folk' depending on what tag is popular this week).   Until this point I would have said that RAM's acme was the superb 'Book of the Lost', recorded with fellow arcane traveller Emily Jones, a bucolic soundtrack to an imaginary portmanteau TV series (think Amicus films but with more countryside). I would have to say though that 'Disciples of the Scorpion' transcends 'Book of the Lost', an accomplishment in and of itself.  To give some background, via RAM's Bandcamp page, 'Disciples of the Scorpion' is "The official soundtrack to the folk-horror film....a 1975 low budget film made...