Memoirs of A Fiend...MOA CD 2024...FIEND CD 101

Long delayed release containing some fine collaborative sounds and also some of the final E.Y.E sounds.

Buy the CD here:
ashtraynavigations.bandcamp.com/album/expose-your-eyes-ashtray-navigations-ongoing-psychology

Or I have a few available also if anyone wants to get one from me - £6 plus postage - please get in touch using the bandcamp 'Contact' form if interested. Pay by Paypal.


Review by Shaun Robert (February 2024):

Expose Your Eyes & Ashtray Navigations - Ongoing Psychology
"First collaborative release hacked out throughout 2023 by these two West Yorkshire based strange music breweries" To be honest I didn't know what to expect ; I know Expose Your Eyes output quite well , and I've not heard much by Ashtray Navigations , I did have some cassette tapes from them at one point ; the thing is there's so much music out there that it falls into a mist .
The back cover has what looks like portraits of Kevin Dobson & George Savalas from Kojak , {who loves you baby} , I asked Paul Harrison of Expose Your Eyes "I think Phil was just unsure what to put on the back cover and his partner Mel was looking at a Kojak annual she had picked up somewhere and they thought a particular couple of images of those characters were amusing - so put them on the back - something like that...I must admit, when I saw those images I laughed out loud for some reason...and it just seemed like, yeah - why not just put something completely random and stupid on the back......" so there a more than slight kitschness about the cover , even the front cover arcing psychs or a trapped leviathan or the windscreen of a bubble car , has a new agey feel .
I think this friendliness makes the an album approachable .

So with slight trepidation I start the album , the first track 'Power Tool Music For Dummies' made me think of both Moondog & White Stripes. Coming in at 40 seconds very much a intro track and a good start .
It jumps straight into a wall of noise , with electronica self assembling in the background 'Quality Blue Polyester' brevity still at play ; all of 1'40" . Again we jump to 'Not Liking Fun' 44 seconds of sounds rather like Lukas Ligeti , and beautiful miniature , also rather My Life in the Bush of Ghosts .
For track four a longer form piece in two sections , coming in at 7'38" , 'Blurred Spider' is a reflective sine waves piece
Track 5 "Eighties Sports Day In Hell' , I came relate to that , sports should be done by people who want to do sports . A industrial off beat miasma , partly library music sci fi sounding , I could of thrown myself around the room to this one back in the day , that kind of excise sits well with me .
Six "Crambid Snout" leading up from the previous track rather than , be more with a overblown British Electric Foundation fell ,withe a slight motoric feel ; Tangerine Dream , Klaus Schulze interlude of 2'54"
Seven "Wingy Fist" ; fully into the body of the album now , we drift of into space , in keeping with the two works before it , this carrys on the narrative ; 4'05" .Then the painful sounding "Tendril Nipple Extension" , but maybe it's more fractious than the title eludes ; a contemplative noise stream outside of known space . A jump mode to 9 , and swishing gliding keys slightly harpsichord sound of "Sick Protein" .
Completing the album with "Psychology Ongoing" , a 08'28" drone piece .
Coming in at 38'26" the length of a old school album .
Myself I liked the first half best

Response to Shaun's review by Paul Harrison:

"Nice that you picked out each track with something to say about it and good that you are honest about liking the first half better...I like certain tracks better than others...a few bits I think are really good...on the whole the full thing quite listenable....and despite the lengthy delays (mostly due to Phil having to throw himself into doing a Phd for almost a year...'hacked out throughout 2023' was
really him managing to do something with the sounds I'd already sent him by about Jan 2023 - then nothing until we returned to it in Oct / Nov 2023 - and the sounds I sent him had already been around for a while before he started work on them - the very last of the E.Y.E sounds)...the working process between us when we did finally buckle down to it was very easygoing and just get on with it not faff about too much and fuss over every detail, which I like...."