HOUSE Of ALL – A Plague of Sound – eyewitness account by Jim Donnelly
Previously unpublished sleeve-notes and photo portraits from the three day recording session for the HOUSE Of ALL album. Introduced by Martin Bramah.
Here is a testament made by an old friend and original Fall insider, Jim Donnelly. He was invited to document, with his camera, the coming together of House Of All for the first time. Over the three days of recording he was present as a fly on the wall capturing the interactions and creativity of the five Fall alumni. On returning to his home on the Northumbrian coast, he scribbled down his impressions of the experience, to better elucidate this momentous communal happening. Together with his photographs it makes a most edifying read. (MB)
A Plague of Sound (in praise of repetition)
It started long before it actually happened. An idea often lives in gestation, sits in its own web of connecting notions until either it sees the light of day or, more often, evolves into another idea. Ideas are living entities that we all harbour, and we all feed. As far as I know the notion of what grew into HOUSE Of ALL has been around for quite some time, growing, evolving. And yet when it happened, the day, the actual day it happened none of the participants had any idea what was to be the likely outcome.
Martin had casually mentioned to me a couple of times over the last two years about doing something around the legacy of The Fall but as he was becoming so prolific with Blue Orchids material it didn’t seem likely that anything would ever come of it. Then of course, as for everyone the pandemic strode the land. That didn’t stop Martin, it was a very creative period, the two albums Speed The Day and Angus Tempus Memoir were released. It was while doing some photographs for the Angus Tempus Memoir album on the Northumbrian coast that there was a suggestion that there may be something eeking its way out.
Towards the end of April, the conversation went like this; Got a studio booked for 20-22 June, can you document it? – Yes, I think I’m available, what have you got in mind? I’ve assembled a lineup of ex Fall members. – That sounds interesting, who? Steve and Paul Hanley, Si Wolstencroft and Pete Greenway – Double drums, classic nods. Are you going to do new material? The plan is we improvise. No plan. HOUSE Of ALL, a sort of Fall family continuum.
The studio booked for the recording is in a big mill, factory space in a ungentrified and particularly unfashionable part of east Manchester. It is up on the third floor. Accessed by impossibly steep stairs or a chain lift which seems to have a will of its own. The studio windows give out on to another former mill, the Rochdale Canal and a roof top view Manchester City’s stadium. If you can make out on to the roof you can see the spires of the new city and the ruins of the Electric Circus. The studio engineer is a Welsh émigré called Tomos who has worked on previous Blue Orchids albums is ready and willing.
So it is that, at the start of the hot idle summer of 2022 these five musicians turn up at the studio. It had probably been ten years since any of them had played together and none of them have ever actually played with Pete Greenway before. There were no expectations, if nothing comes out it’ll be no shock, if something emerges it’ll all be for the good. It is known that there won’t be a creating of Anthem for Lost Youth, they are not youth. There will not be a recreation of the past, whatever it will be will be a step forward but with clear reference to the past. No nervous energy just a simple determination to feed the plague of sounds that live inside their heads, but with that very original mantra; repetition, repetition, repetition, we feed the repetition.
With two drummers there is that opening of getting the sound right. They need to be able to work with each other but have their own voices. They need to bleed together but sound apart. While the drums are builded there are discussions ongoing. All here know improvisation has a long tradition in music and the arts and they have all worked this way before. What they are going to do is not really the question. What flavour of plague are they going to create. Chippy flavour guitar, laced with gravy. A break, sitting around, supping tea and coffee and teetering on the edge of something new.
The foundations are ready. The time is now. It is time to allow the noise to resound. And it starts. Run through once. Drums first, drums then bass, guitar and guitar. Then it starts, it goes on until it ends, it comes to a natural end. Then they pile into the control room, the sun is peering through the window casting it’s Manchester glow on their work. The years may have come and turned but they know with that first seven minutes they have something to work on and toward. Discuss the intricacies, go again, refine the repetition and build on it. Let it all ease out until there is more. And there is more. Day one almost over, but there is time for another because all of them realise that there is something growing, something like a plague. It is reaching into every crack in the big mill becoming part of the air until it is everywhere. Two tracks down by the end of day one and everyone leaves for their own lives taking a few spores with them.
Day two, midsummer, the longest day. No rest, straight in for track three. There is a drive, an inspiration coming from everyone. They can all feel the infestation of the plague they are creating. The process is straightforward. Ideas for the next track, I’ve got this notion, I’ve got that notion. What about something in 7/7 time. The two drummers Si and Paul sit about tapping something in 7 while Steve works on a bass line. Pete and Martin are brimming over with ideas. They’re not going to stop now until they have got an album’s worth of material done and dusted. Except for the compulsory break to sup tea, coffee and eat the obligatory chips. And the sun continues to shine. And the slightly anxious faces of yesterday are starting to smile. And by the end of the day the basic tracks are all done. And the engineer Tomos is dripping with sweat.
The final studio day is about vocals, backing vocals, handclapping and embellishments. This warm strawberry summer’s day is all about self-education. Lessons in Latin regarding the Lord of the ruin or what other name he is known by. Lessons in works of medieval monks explaining the beast of the apocalypse. Lyrics fall, like always, from a collected carrier bag they are moved and shaped into something new. Something coherent, if you know how to listen. Everyone has got the taste for this now. They all know. This old mill knows. The Manchester in our past knows. Write a new lyric, adapt an old statement. Let all the influences feed the repetition. Life is all about repetition. If you don’t go back and repeat it you will never understand it. If you don’t carry on enquiring, you’ll never learn.
(C) Jim Donnelly
Northumberland coast
August 2022
Buy the album from the HOUSE Of ALL bandcamp
HOUSE Of ALL are live in session on Marc Rileys show BBC 6-Music tonight, 10 May 2023 where they debut a new song.
The Second HOUSE Of ALL album is scheduled for January 2024 I am told.
Tour dates ….
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