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The Stretch m​-​ARKhives

by Stretchmarks

/
  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    BLACK! black like tar.... vinyl like mother used to bake. only 200 available here at this 'old school - reasonable people' pricing the other 200 via record outlets via various distributers like Boomkat, Cargo, A-Musik, Forced Exposure, so most likely more expensive?
    Bandcamp Vinyl edition comes with download with the additional Bonus C Side 5 tracks from the CD version plus an extra 'oblique' Demo Studio version of Chicken Little at Stern's insistence! PLUS the 1st 100 out the door come with the nifty narcotic reference chart sticker for the true StretchMarks fetishists and 'Get Weird' lifestyle proponents.

    Includes unlimited streaming of The Stretch m-ARKhives via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 2 days
    edition of 12  6 remaining
    Purchasable with gift card

      £13 GBP or more 

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Compact Dusk is upon us! CD is the new Cassette.. pocket sized, sealed for your pleasure and protection and slithering out its sounds at 44killerHurts in 16 tiny bits.. the format of kings! leave the heavy weight vinyl to the new old fuddyduddies.. sounds great, does yr pocket good AND an extra 22 minutes of chugga bonk!

    Includes unlimited streaming of The Stretch m-ARKhives via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 1 day
    edition of 15  6 remaining
    Purchasable with gift card

      £7.50 GBP or more 

     

  • CALLING ALL UK & EUROPEAN CITIZENS
    do yourself ( and us... ok mostly us! ) a favour, buy this Vinyl Sticker instead of the Digital Download.. You will get the same download AND this stretchy promo self adhesive narcotic reference chart sent by letter post to yr physical 'inbox'. You won't have to pay VAT so it should technically work out the same price in the UK or 30p extra for europeans with a nifty professionally manufactured full gloss sticker for free PLUS bandcamp only snaffle 10% of our proceeds instead of 15% AND you are taking a symbolic stand against the Taxation of culture... books aren't taxed , why is music considered a lesser cultural art form? STOP IT NOW!
    sticker is 175mm x 35mm
    Limited Edition of 100 ( sticker also included exclusively in the 1st 100 of the vinyl copies available from us here on bandcamp )

    Includes unlimited streaming of The Stretch m-ARKhives via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 1 day
    edition of 100 
    Purchasable with gift card

      £4 GBP or more 

     

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      £4.75 GBP  or more

     

1.
Puddle Of Love\ twighlight or dawn, i'm yawning at the sudden similarity.\ lobster or prawn , i'm certainly no Jaques Cousteau when it comes to the sea.\ eternal concern, trust anybody.\ a deliverer of ferns, as suburban as Bill Oddie ( Noddy )\ society yearns for a figure like you.\ to show us all and tell us all, just what to do.\ like James Belushi or a beak on the ground\ it's the sound of sand going through a child's hand
2.
gimme the eye\ small time, small fry, slow slide, two time.\ lookin' at me I see you giving me the eye!\ small time, small fry, slow slide, two time.(x2)\ smile is slippery, kind of trickery.\ if you can think what i'm thinking then do it to me, inevitably.\ open me up, crack the safe, take it out, take me away from here. (2)\ small time, small fries, slow slide, two time.(x2)\ give me tha eye!
3.
they're all the same\ never leaves you, never leaves your mind.\ it's always there besides you, the cosmic string keeps doing its thing.\ they're all the same, lame ducks, aw shucks, who gets the prize?\ they're all the same, lame ducks, aw shucks, who cares who gets a prize?\ keep your eyes open, here's hoping you know what your doing.
4.
Half A Mind 01:49
half a mind \ if your thinking of losing your mind\ and I know that you already have.\ if I found you've lost mine, inside your mind,\ it was my lost mind I found in your mind.\ sometimes I have a half a mind\ have to have half a mind\ sometimes I have a half\ I have a half a mind, half a mind to have a mind\ once upon a time, I had quite a time,\ having all of my mind.
5.
grate together\ i need a bite to eat\ i need a real treat\ i've got to hand it to you on a plate\ you're so unique\ you and me, we're so.. great together, grate together.\ oh!, oh!.... great big ghetto blaster!
6.
7.
no way ( i'm getting laid back )\ there's no way I'm getting laid back, I'm going to attack attack attack attack attack!\ e-sucking teepee heads\ e-sucking teepee heads, brick up their ned dens\ here come the... e-sucking teepee heads\ shed your skin from the beginning,\ 'cause here come the e-sucking teepee heads\ e-sucking teepee heads, brick up their ned dens\ here come the... e-sucking teepee heads\ shed your skin, from the beginning, fashion willing
8.
Punch Me Out 03:57
punch me out\ about time, about turn\ turn around, a different view\ that will learn you, it's your time\ to do right.\ whatcha gonna do, about time\ stay up all night, splice blind\ out of sight, is out of my mind\ that will learn you, it's your time, it's your time.\ to punch me out, punch me, punch me OUT!
9.
lets get weird\ lets get weird, lets get weird, lets get weird in my kidney shaped swimming pool.\ lets get weird, lets get weird, you and me in my kidney shaped swimming poooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool!\ DO get weird, lets get weird, weird and me in a kidney shaped swimming pool.\ [ there are some of us who take chemicals etc.. ] weird!
10.
11.
chicken little\ burns, cuts, bruises.\ learns, tuts, chooses\ I saw a cunt in cuneiform.\ a stunted crumbling cumbersome form,\ all gaping and forlorn \ burns, cuts, bruises.\ learns, tuts, chooses\ it gave me the hump\ instead of the horn\ i wanted some rump\ but I couldn't afford it!
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about

"AVOID THE FUNK! 'cos it's gonna get you... ANYWAY... "
Joe Bowie 1982

the HOT AIR label obsequiously offers up for public consumption:
STRETCHMARKS: the Stretch m-ARKhives
on Vinyl Lp, Compact Disc & Downloadable Digits.
released March 2018. catalogue number: airtight014

THE BLURB ( or: What are these unsightly Stretchmarkings that you display before me? )

short answer:
A seldom heard band existing at the end of the 80’s comprising persons under the influence of Allen Ravenstine, David Moss, Gareth Sager, Sonny Sharrock, Bootsy Collins, Herbie Flowers, John 'Drumbo' French, Robert Wyatt, Ronald Shannon Jackson, Don Van Vliet, Gabi Delgado etc who attempted to meld the noisier end of free improvisation with a slightly more oblique and accomplished Funk than the manchester 'baggy' sound of that era.
An album release cobbled together from Studio Demo, Rehearsal Room and Live recordings.
Appeals to? Enthusiastic listeners of: The Contortions, Boredoms, The Pop Group, 1st Golden Palaminos LP, P-Funk, Pere Ubu, Clock DVA, Captain Beefheart, Defunkt, A Certain Ratio, Liquid Liquid, ESG, Material, The Birthday Party, DNA, Stock Hausen & Walkman, Chakk, Butthole Surfers, John Zorn's Locus Solus, 23 Skidoo, Rip Rig & Panic, Mr Bungle, Cameo, the Wee Papa Girl Rappers and everything in the next 3 decades that milked those influences to curdling point!



long answer:
2018 a year that could, if it chose to, embrace an anniversary of a somewhat obscure nature. 1988, hang on let me do some finger counting, ok... 30 years ago in the freezing northern wasteland of Manchester, about 3 years after the cities icey cold post punk culture was thawing, 8 years before the IRA detonated the biggest explosion in England since WW2 in the city centre and the £700 million worth of damage signaled the entire regeneration of the centre, somewhere in a mostly squatted no-go area on the south western edge of the city called Hulme.. trouble was brewing!
Trouble in the form of the earliest incarnations of Stock, Hausen & Walkman, later to become Englandlands most notorious purveyors of the "plunderphonic" artform.
Matt Wand & Rex Casswell both suffering a baptism into improvised music as members of a group that were also shedding their post-punk affiliations and choosing The Art Ensemble of Chicago direction, both Matt & Rex were becoming frustrated with the strict 'no electronics' regime and were branching out. At first as a duo under the name "23 Women Artists" ( a name chosen to attract and then confuse the Arts Council of the time ) and then in two parallel directions, one under the Wand coined moniker: Stock, Hausen & Walkman, basically the Matt/Rex duo with whoever seemed interesting and available at the time and a little talked of Group that morphed through names like 'Doberman', 'Stalk Naked' and eventually settled on STRETCHMARKS. a key member of Stretchmarks AND often employed to propel the SH&W project through gigs at breakneck percussive speeds was drummer Richard Harrison who's band credentials are enviable ( and provided Hot Air with one of it's most prescient releases richard-harrison.bandcamp.com/releases ). The P-Funk Bass position was filled by a Mr Martin Hennin who's keen business acumen means he can under-write the hideous expense of this limited Vinyl release. Praise Bob! ...or Shillings in this case.
Last to arrive on the scene and the Glottal Glue that tied it all together in loose song form was Stern, a long time collaborator with Matt and who's quest for the 'beat' lifestyle had led him to follow the William Burroughs career path into professional Extermination ( didn't often extend to humans AFAIK! ).
Fast forward a few years and Derek Bailey makes one of his more perverse decisions to invite SH&W to play and integrate into Company Week and shoehorn Matt into the Tony Oxley quartet, SH&W releases get press attention etc etc. and those early amorphous seedlings are taking a back seat to something that looks vaguely like a 'career in music'. The Stock, Hausen & Walkman monster won, it seems, and later went on to be even bigger in the more commercial electronic music scenes.
These days Rex continues to bamboozle most other guitar players in the trio BARK! and Matts idiosyncratic, and beyond non-idiomatic contributions to the free improvised oeuvre are largely forgotten. It was deemed unacceptable, un-recordable and possibly un-listenable by the 'frozen mindset' critics of the time yet today literally every live performance of electronic 'improvising' contains SH&W's and Matt's DNA, mostly in diluted form. Richard continues to pound the skins in a world renown trumpet/ drums duo Spaceheads and his and Martin Hennin's history as backing musicians for Nico ( yes, THAT Warholian Nico ) and the Blue Orchids remains untold. ( an upcoming German Nico biography might shed more light there apparently, if you sprechen sie den Lingo?) Stern is now chief assassin for the Rentokil empire in Oxfordshire but hasn't yet been given clearance to deal with the David Cameron infestation.
So all this begs the question: why wasn't a release forthcoming during the Mayfly length lifespan of this unique musical alignment? other than the reasons hinted above, probably because the potential seemed great and after recording and mixing the 4 or 5 demo tracks it seemed that we could do better and that a really exciting album was in us if only we could avoid being sidetracked by other projects and get back into a studio. We didn't & sidetracked we were!! time for us to make amends and you to rewind 30 years into the cold chill of Thatcherism and Fracturism with a Beat.
REPENT your former listening sins! bin that barrel of Bio-Oil ! Stretchmarks are sexy again!!
( Wand 2018 )
for other stuff perpetrated by these guys AND MORE! go to: hot-air.bandcamp.com

credits

released March 19, 2018

mots 'n' mouth: Stern
low end: Martin Hennin
beatings: Richard Harrison
anti-plectrum: Rex Casswell
divergent din: Matt Wand

gestated, birthed, dressed up and waved under your adoring noses by Matt Wand @ Dickys Skull, Eccles.

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Stretchmarks Manchester, UK

STRETCHMARKS: approximately 1988-1991 were M Wand & R Casswell of Stock, Hausen & Walkman notoriety, R Harrison of Dislocation Dance, Blue Orchids. M Hennin - loosely associated with A Certain Ratio members and that scene & Stern of The Grind, once drummer in Dub Sex & Suns of Arqa.
STRETCHMARKS: often considered unsightly but just look at those secondary school art class Tattoos y'all sportin !
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