November 2017

Following cold on the long-vanished heels of Black Friday, the marketing brains at Smoking Ant Records have been roused from their hammocks to present their bargain deal for the crazed consumers of this and any other cosmos. On the 27th of November, aka Slack Monday, a free download single by Doug Murphy + Paul Hamilton up-popped on the Bandcamp website. It comprises two versions of their ferociously non-legendary track ‘The Silent Finger’, utilising dub, spoken word, xenochrony, musique concrete, found sounds, accident and chance, and the usual old preposterous stuff’n’nonsense you might expect.

Eschewing lyrics for once, ‘The Silent Finger’ features Albie Gibbs proclaiming his philosophical Pyewhackettian prophesies. Albie – or Lord Bucketnose – is familiar to hardened listeners of our catalogue. There he is – in the video to the Yellowjack classic ‘Half-Life’. And he is the primary karmic/comic inspiration for ‘Babylon Don’ by This Little Badge. Give that man a hand (getting his drinks).

“But what has darling Doug Murphy been up to this year?”, I hear a strangled cry. Much of his time has been taken up with beard maintenance but he has found a spare minute or two to set up his Ramones-meets-ABBA musical outfit. Entitled ABBA ABBA HEY, he and his paw-picked squad of Norwegian groovers (Walter, Lou, Fern & O) will be laying all their love on you some time in that 2018 they’ve got lined up.

‘The Silent Finger’ awaits you. Click on this sentence which will spirit you away to Bandcamp where you can grab it for absolutely FREE.