FALLING A RECORDS -WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?
My thanks to BARRY LAMB for sending over a whole heap of releases from his label, which have provided me with some interesting listening during the continuing cold and rainy days of Winter.
First of all, I asked Barry a few questions:
Why and how did FALLING A RECORDS start?
Pete and I have been friends since we met in the first year of secondary school (1974), we both had a love of interesting non mainstream music, even at such a young age. Pete was influenced largely by having two older brothers and I had been influenced by my fathers taste in jazz and the more experimental end of the rock music spectrum. My dad introduced me to the music of Van Der Graaf
Generator and Pete introduced me to the world of Frank Zappa, King Crimson and loads of weird and wonderful rabbit holes. Punk came along, just as we were learning our instruments, so we got caught up in the world of punk, although with a real experimental and art rock feel. Our influences were diverse. During that period there were a lot of independent record labels emerging and we wanted to record and release our own music but being still at school, we had no money so instead released our early efforts on cassette, recorded either in Pete’s conservatory or my house, we would hand draw the artwork and take copies into school and give them to girls that we liked (never a
successful venture). The whole cassette culture scene was beginning to happen and all three of the major music papers (NME, Sounds and Melody Maker) were giving it a profile … so some of our early cassettes were reviewed and we started to connect with like minded musicians and released some of their music too. We developed a mail order service which grew through word of mouth via a
growing network of fanzines, pirate radio stations, the mainstream music press and gigs. Our origins are very much in this world. There have been some articles in Record Collector about cassette culture and Falling A has been given a bit of a profile in those, there’s also Jerry Kranitz’s authoritative book “Cassette Culture: Homemade Music and the Creative Spirit in the Pre-Internet
Age”. I am extensively interviewed in that book. We released some records a bit later and even had a record shop, distribution network between 1983-1985.
Why the name FALLING A?
Back in the day, people used to think the A stood for anarchy … it was something to do with what was happening at the time. In reality it was one of Pete’s doodles on a school book. He used to do Terry Gilliam type animations on his school books and one of those doodles was a large letter A falling off the page. That’s how we got our name.
Turning first to your own music, specifically to the TWO HEADED EMPEROR project with Peter Ashby. I am becoming increasingly intrigued by your “Wireless of the North” album. Your lyrics are very important to you, aren’t they? Take the first track ‘Posturing’. There are lines about trying to be something you’re not, life as a façade and references to the digital age to a heavily electronic 80s vibe, described on your BANDCAMP page as “edgy, punk influenced Art Rock.” A lot of people think that, since the 80s, a lot of the issues referred to are becoming much more problematic- would you agree? And what are the main messages you are trying to convey in your lyrics?
Lyrics are important to us and so is the music. Our whole approach to an album is that we are very intentional about it being a cohesive body of work in it;s own right. We attempt to deliver the LP experience that we had growing up. Interesting artwork, carefully thought out flow of the music and a listening experience equivalent to approx 22 minutes per side. Each album has its own themes and ideas as well as a carefully selected sound palette. We limit ourselves to what instrumentation we will work with for each album project and the lyrics are contained within certain themes and ideas that I want to convey. You could say that “Wireless” throws up a lot of disdain for the modern world, the cultural, political and social landscape. Some of the other albums have much more personal and introspective themes and we are working on one at the moment which is taking an ancient war poem and attempting to bring that to life in a modern context attesting to the fact that the human heart has not changed at all over the last couple of millennia. We are also working on one with Ric Sanders (Fairport Convention, Soft Machine) which has the theme of a dark and mysterious forest tale.
I have reviewed the album separately, but it strikes me that ‘Fight or Flight’ is at the more experimental end of a music influenced by an 80s sound. Perhaps I am on the track here, but I detected a whiff of SIOUXSIE & THE BANSHEES on ‘Double Edged Sword’ in the guitar sound in particular. Also elsewhere, an out-there JAPAN and even the KING CRIMSON in their ‘3 of A Perfect Pair’ etcetera period on ‘Shan’t, Can’t, Won’t’. Who would you and Peter say are the most important influences on your music, individual musicians and bands that is?
These are interesting observations. Given that we grew up on the more experimental end of rock music, so bands like VDGG, Soft Machine, King Crimson, Henry Cow, Krautrock, The Canterbury scene are really important to our foundation, we also really cut our teeth in the post punk period when we were listening to the likes of Gang Of Four, The Pop Group, The Fall, (early) The Cure, Joy Division etc… but our musical tastes are way more eclectic than that. I think our range of influences is very diverse … David Bowie keeps getting mentioned. I am a big fan of his Berlin period, Pete is a fan of Zappa. I think we are also heavily influenced by the whole Wabi Sabi (侘 寂) art movement.
Here’s a link to an interview we did that unpacks it a little more:
https://www.barrylamb.com/uploads/9/6/0/9/9609025/two_headed_emperor_interview_powerplay.pdf
My thanks to BARRY LAMB for sending over a whole heap of releases from his label, which have provided me with some interesting listening during the continuing cold and rainy days of Winter.
First of all, I asked Barry a few questions:
Why and how did FALLING A RECORDS start?
Pete and I have been friends since we met in the first year of secondary school (1974), we both had a love of interesting non mainstream music, even at such a young age. Pete was influenced largely by having two older brothers and I had been influenced by my fathers taste in jazz and the more experimental end of the rock music spectrum. My dad introduced me to the music of Van Der Graaf
Generator and Pete introduced me to the world of Frank Zappa, King Crimson and loads of weird and wonderful rabbit holes. Punk came along, just as we were learning our instruments, so we got caught up in the world of punk, although with a real experimental and art rock feel. Our influences were diverse. During that period there were a lot of independent record labels emerging and we wanted to record and release our own music but being still at school, we had no money so instead released our early efforts on cassette, recorded either in Pete’s conservatory or my house, we would hand draw the artwork and take copies into school and give them to girls that we liked (never a
successful venture). The whole cassette culture scene was beginning to happen and all three of the major music papers (NME, Sounds and Melody Maker) were giving it a profile … so some of our early cassettes were reviewed and we started to connect with like minded musicians and released some of their music too. We developed a mail order service which grew through word of mouth via a
growing network of fanzines, pirate radio stations, the mainstream music press and gigs. Our origins are very much in this world. There have been some articles in Record Collector about cassette culture and Falling A has been given a bit of a profile in those, there’s also Jerry Kranitz’s authoritative book “Cassette Culture: Homemade Music and the Creative Spirit in the Pre-Internet
Age”. I am extensively interviewed in that book. We released some records a bit later and even had a record shop, distribution network between 1983-1985.
Why the name FALLING A?
Back in the day, people used to think the A stood for anarchy … it was something to do with what was happening at the time. In reality it was one of Pete’s doodles on a school book. He used to do Terry Gilliam type animations on his school books and one of those doodles was a large letter A falling off the page. That’s how we got our name.
Turning first to your own music, specifically to the TWO HEADED EMPEROR project with Peter Ashby. I am becoming increasingly intrigued by your “Wireless of the North” album. Your lyrics are very important to you, aren’t they? Take the first track ‘Posturing’. There are lines about trying to be something you’re not, life as a façade and references to the digital age to a heavily electronic 80s vibe, described on your BANDCAMP page as “edgy, punk influenced Art Rock.” A lot of people think that, since the 80s, a lot of the issues referred to are becoming much more problematic- would you agree? And what are the main messages you are trying to convey in your lyrics?
Lyrics are important to us and so is the music. Our whole approach to an album is that we are very intentional about it being a cohesive body of work in it;s own right. We attempt to deliver the LP experience that we had growing up. Interesting artwork, carefully thought out flow of the music and a listening experience equivalent to approx 22 minutes per side. Each album has its own themes and ideas as well as a carefully selected sound palette. We limit ourselves to what instrumentation we will work with for each album project and the lyrics are contained within certain themes and ideas that I want to convey. You could say that “Wireless” throws up a lot of disdain for the modern world, the cultural, political and social landscape. Some of the other albums have much more personal and introspective themes and we are working on one at the moment which is taking an ancient war poem and attempting to bring that to life in a modern context attesting to the fact that the human heart has not changed at all over the last couple of millennia. We are also working on one with Ric Sanders (Fairport Convention, Soft Machine) which has the theme of a dark and mysterious forest tale.
I have reviewed the album separately, but it strikes me that ‘Fight or Flight’ is at the more experimental end of a music influenced by an 80s sound. Perhaps I am on the track here, but I detected a whiff of SIOUXSIE & THE BANSHEES on ‘Double Edged Sword’ in the guitar sound in particular. Also elsewhere, an out-there JAPAN and even the KING CRIMSON in their ‘3 of A Perfect Pair’ etcetera period on ‘Shan’t, Can’t, Won’t’. Who would you and Peter say are the most important influences on your music, individual musicians and bands that is?
These are interesting observations. Given that we grew up on the more experimental end of rock music, so bands like VDGG, Soft Machine, King Crimson, Henry Cow, Krautrock, The Canterbury scene are really important to our foundation, we also really cut our teeth in the post punk period when we were listening to the likes of Gang Of Four, The Pop Group, The Fall, (early) The Cure, Joy Division etc… but our musical tastes are way more eclectic than that. I think our range of influences is very diverse … David Bowie keeps getting mentioned. I am a big fan of his Berlin period, Pete is a fan of Zappa. I think we are also heavily influenced by the whole Wabi Sabi (侘 寂) art movement.
Here’s a link to an interview we did that unpacks it a little more:
https://www.barrylamb.com/uploads/9/6/0/9/9609025/two_headed_emperor_interview_powerplay.pdf
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