Lost Robots will be performing live at Recluse tomorrow (Thursday) night. Recluse is at The Flea Pit, 49 Columbia Road, London, E2 7RG.

Also performing are Alex Monk and Oscar Lomas and the marvellous Alan Tomlinson Trio (Alan Tomlinson - trombone, Phil Marks - drums, Dave Tucker - guitar)

There's a weird connection in that three of Lost Robots used to be in the Fall cover band "The Hideous Replicas" and Dave Tucker used to play clarinet with The Fall.

Lost Robots have elected to play acoustically for this event - the line up probably being, Mark Braby - voice, percussion and things, Andy Coules - bass, Clive Pearman - banjo and Richard Sanderson - squeezebox, clarinet and small instruments. We will be improvising.

Also promised are DJ sets from Hybernation and visuals from FBox Records.

Admission is a recession busting £3.

In the meantime, Lost Robot's last performance - a remarkably restrained improvisation at Scaledown is now available as a download. 14 mins for a mere 69p.

Avant Rock On-


Actually really enjoyed the gig last night - as I think this picture communicates well-



And it was nice of Benny Goodman to turn up and jam with us-



"The Constitution" was a really nice pub, lots of proper beers, a beer garden and the back of the music space opened directly onto the canal - very bohemian. To be honest I was expecting a Carling Black Label rock pub - very pleasantly surprised. Also very pleasantly surprised to bump into members of Die Trip Computer Die who popped along. "1979", I confirmed, when they asked what year we were....

On the way there, in a truly horrible crowded tube , I was offered a seat. I accepted it, once I realised I probably was the oldest bloke in the carriage, and certainly the greyest. This, I imagine, is the shape of things to come.

Photos by the irrepressible Andy Coules

Entertaining Flash Promo for the new album.

...and it's a pretty glowing one from The Organ Magazine-

LOST ROBOTS – No (The Orchestra Pit) – London’s Lost Robots with an album that can’t be anchored down, as they say themselves - NO! Some kind of avant-rock band, really avant this time, not some chin-stroking metal band throwing in an extra note or two and declaring it avant like they built some pile of bricks or some signed cultural toilet and put it all in the Tate. Lost Robots have no one style you can hold them to – they have so much style. Strange lo-fi, compact rock structures that get all country rock and banjo-picked and then give way to found sound and birdsong and out go the structures and in comes the free improvisation. Filmic jump-cuts, safety from numbers and cryptic clues for vocal lines, “propulsive rhythms” – propulsive, I like that... brooding propulsion and locomotives that take them and us to different places. Stop. And just when you think you know where we’re all going we switch platforms and find a killer song or some neat finger picking waiting to take us somewhere else – safety from this and that, safe and sound! They talk of having their roots in post-punk, free improv and 70’s German experimentation – well that will do for a starting point, add some really refined song writing and some adventurous musicianship that resists the temptation to get too clever and some really easy to get on with songs. In a bath, bubbles, water, tap, drips... thinking... lots to discover here, this is not an album that’s going to get boring... no dull aches, everything to explore. Fine songs and the recommended art of otherness – www.lostrobots.net or www.theorchestrapit.com.

Yeah, pretty happy with that!

here.

I'm rather tickled by the reference to the "advanced age" of the band!

You can still buy delightfully digipacked CDs from the Orchestra Pit Shop for £8, or download from Amazon for £4.99.

Clive Pearman, another member of Lost Robots writes-

As of this morning Amazon MP3 went live in the UK.

Up there with the new Take That album and such, I'm very pleased to say are two Lost Robots albums, available on the day the application/store went live.

Punters can Preview All tracks or just individual ones. Each track is £0.69 or the album is available as a whole for £4.99

Richard, you can add this to your blog:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/No/dp/B001ISAYWM

That's a full 3 quid cheaper than itunes.

For those of you that don't want to buy a real-world, gorgeously digipak-ed copy of the new Lost Robots CD "No" from here, there are download options-

Download from iTunes (£7.99)

Download from emusic UK

Download from Amazon.com USA ($6.99)

Download from Amazon (UK)(a mere £4.99)

Chums, I have two potential dates for your busy diaries.

Most importantly, Lost Robots launch their brand new CD (in gorgeous linoprint digipak) with a gig in central London on the 5th December. Our record label, The Orchestra Pit Recording Company are organising it, it'll probably be at The Arts Theatre Club, in Frith Street.

But also, ednawatley has asked me to perform at the Scaledown Club on the 28th November. Astonishingly, I think this may be my first gig this year.

2008 marks the 30th anniversary of my first live performance, when my punk band "The Silencers" played at Middlesbrough Air Cadets, so I was contemplating doing a solo gig, looking back at some of the many songs performed over the 30 years of my spectacularly unsuccessful music career.

I thought I might select a few songs from Drop, Tick Tick, The Euphoria Case and my solo work and perform them accompanying myself on ham-fisted keyboard....
...either that or I'll do something very, very minimal and conceptual.

Any thoughts?

there are some MP3s of my old stuff on my Profile Page


ah yes, I remember it well...

I have made the forthcoming Lost Robots album, "No" available on Last FM, including three full length tracks. Andy (producer/engineer) would probably like me to point out that the album will be remastered before the official release as a digipak CD and download in October, but if you'd like a taste then please go here.

Speaking of Last FM, it's working wonderfully for me nowadays - it effectively provides all my office listening. I'm here by the way.

Those of you on tenterhooks waiting for the forthcoming CD by Lost Robots may be interested to know that a track from said CD is on the myspace page of our publishers VACILANDO ’68.

It's a rather jolly instrumental called "Old Iron Van" written and played by Andy Coules, Clive Pearman, Mark Braby and Myself.

We're just sorting out the cover for the CD (to be released on Orchestra Pit Recordings) now.

So here I am typing into LJ a mere 8 and a half hours after finishing a Lost Robots set at "songbird" last night.

I think way may have stood out last night - we looked like a rock band, a pub rock band to be more acurate- all in white shirts and black trousers. We were at least double the age of most people there, and we made a pounding racket rather than whispy etherial floating noises. People seemed to think we were OK though.

Of the other acts I saw I was rather taken by the ultra lo-fi of Hearts Win, one girl with a casio and a looping pedal. The music was hesitant and delicate, with really interesting lyrics, a self-depricating performance style that hovered somewhere between accute embarrasment and near silence. The music had gaps and spaces, and very interesting lyrics. Very cool.

There was more etherialness and spaciousness in the music of Patel Pretal, whose music ("played" by Dominik and Katie) was the most the most arcane and baffling I've heard since first being exposed to "reductionism" in the mid '90's. I was unclear as to what was going on there seemed to be a lot of lead buzzing and scuffling sounds that may have been part of the set, or may have been them setting up. A guitar was occasionally plucked and a bass guitar was roughly bowed. There seemed to be the use of a very long delay loop which managed to work a bit like Lucier's "I Am Sitting A room" but applied to a European folk song- the end result was like a very fuzzy version of Ligeti's "Lux Aeterna" it was rather beautiful - but went on a bit.

I missed the other acts in my desperation to get the last train to Hither Green, which was a shame, as what I heard of sitar player Chris Cook's music (incorporating glitchy laptop) sounded very interesting indeed, and the main group, the largely Canadian Maurena Helena produced the kind of piano driven, slightly melodramatic intricately arranged stuff, that Mark Braby really likes - so they'll probably appear at an Orchestra Pit gig before too long. I also was taken by the way they knitted through the soundchecks...

The venue was cool too- it had a 1967 New York loft gig vibe, all jossticks, silk drapes, chinese lanterns and cushions- very friendly and welcoming.... I'm not sure our brand of "avant rock" really suited it, and if we were asked back we'd probably go for something more improv and delicate, but, heck- there was a drum kit and a PA- and we'd been rehearsing a lot, so a racket was made.

On a glorious summer afternoon, Lost Robots made their way to Barnes and performed a live set at the Barnes Wetlands Centre as part of the ,Pestival, to a select audience of organiser Bridget Nichols, engineer Max, an insect recorder and parents taking their kid to the loo, and listerners to Resonance 104.4fm.
Some pix (taken by Bridget)


Afterwards we retired to the pub nextdoor, sat outside and drank too much.
Fun.