18fps

was the projection speed of silent film. Here, 18fps is a series of imaginary soundtracks based around different themes, featuring recordings specially commisioned from Radio Khartoum’s favorite artists. Each record is a world unto itself…for the duration of a reel or two, at least.

A return to the thriller-esque mode of 18fps’ debut The Flight of Everson K. Swedish artist Testbild! turns in a surrealist detective stomper in the form of “His Shadows are Green / His Shadows are Blue” which probably owes almost as much to band leader Petter Herbertsson’s obsession with writer Paul Auster as to postpunk and krautrock experimentation. A jagged, melodic tour-de-force. Flipside features “Special Delivery Agent Q-39,” the recording which got Tasmanian multi-instrumentalist Anthony Rochester signed to the label: twang guitar and stabbing flute spy instrumental, standard procedure. Except that Rochester kicks the genre sideways with a 5/4 time signature and an uncharacteristically wistful air... Both tracks exclusive.

Equipped with the latest analog technology, Radio Khartoum breaks free of the Earth's gravitational pull and sets out in search of The Soft Rains of Delta Cephei. Leading the charge are Spain's Souvenir with a chilly bossa that heads from the sea to the Milky Way. Cha Cha Cha alum Spacehonky takes us on an electronic journey through zero gravity to a close orbit around one of Jupiter's moons. France's Hitoribocchi returns from The Stations of Abandoned Days with a decidedly 2001 classical groove for heavy spacecraft in deep space. Japan's 800 Cherries touch down on seemingly familiar solid ground with a laid back icy pop song - but it's hard to be certain if they're really on Earth or not.  Instant Life (Sweden) are on Earth, to be sure, but their retro-futuristic thriller theme forms a wrinkle in time. Finnish RK stalwarts Cessna team up with analog synth maestros Nu Science for a triumphant finale, a voyager theme, destination unknown, but blissful... Umbrella not included. All tracks exclusive.
Further details? See the press release.

In an ever more jumbled world, sometimes it's what you can't see that's most important. The fourth volume of Radio Khartoum's 18fps series is a meditation on location and visibility: the hidden and the lost, things no longer here, and things that are elsewhere. A soundtrack is projected on the inner ear, momentarily cutting through the urban barrage of light, image and noise, to find a fleeting equilibrium between leaving one place and going to another, or to experience a departed lover's presence in the fragrance of a shirt.

The music begins with a small and sweet melody for things lost by The Pierres (featuring Christoffer Schou of Nice System/Remington Super 60), then makes a dramatic cut to Leeds based singer Cavil and a fragile song that hovers between music box and the rhythm of the rails. Dakota Suite contribute a chamber instrumental whose rich, woody cellos remind us of Simon Fisher Turner's Caravaggio soundtrack or Rachels' Music for Egon Schiele. Julien Ribot spins the album's second music box fantasy, but this one blows up, expanding to epic proportions, as Julien, his strings and guitars are swept away by a current of distant trumpets. Watoo Watoo collaborator Didier Duclos, aka Christine (third time out for 18fps) provides an interlude in the form of a wash of ringing guitars with a suggestion of Maurice Deebank, before French band Spring wind things down with a haunting, stripped down version of one of their classics. All tracks exclusive.
Further details? See the press release.

A soundtrack for drifting, lovesick wandering, and perhaps disappearing in a faraway port. Drenched with romanticism and fantasy, with a touch of the tropics and a bit of wry humor to boot, this might be Paris, Texas re-imagined by a young Jean-Luc Godard. On the soundtrack: Vibrafon artists Chesty Morgan provide opening theme and finale, a whistler suitable for slinking into the shadows of a darkened alleyway halfway around the world; Pan-Europeans Cinnamon break free with a remix by Finnish cohorts The Pansies, a remix that would better be described as new song (and not a deconstruction); Hitoribocchi provides a springtime weather forecast for Mars from his hidden satellite workshop in the suburbs of Paris; the elusive Chocolate Barry sends a postcard from some tropical Hell, care/of Brian Wilson; French indiepop eccentrics Caramel pay homage to la nouvelle vague with a lounge drama unlike anything they did before, and which sadly was the very last track recorded before Caramel main man Denis Pasero himself dropped out of sight. All tracks exclusive.
Further details? See the press release.

An autumnal set of songs of sadness and beauty for loves lost across the sea. Opening with Spartan theme for the sun and brine bleached daydreams of weary sailors, penned but never released by Family, performed here instead by their San Sebastian neighbors, Le Mans...and finishing with a gentle yet monumental instrumental by Quigley (who would later achieve much greater visibility with The Montgolfier Brothers and At Swim Two Birds). In between, the original version of Louis Philippe's aching departure waltz "Partir"; Club Foot Orchestra's "Rig", with its plaintive clarinet and lush, haunted orchestration; and "Bejá, a simple yet lovely piece of jazz guitar melancholia from frequent Watoo Watoo guitarist Didier Duclos, aka Christine. All tracks exclusive.

Transmarine was first in what would become a trilogy of "drifter" soundtracks, and probably the closest thing to a perfect release in the early RK catalogue. Ibon Errazkin of Le Mans mentioned his mixed emotions upon first hearing the finished disc: delight coupled with the feeling that his own band's contribution was the weakest song on the disc (or so he said). Maybe the sum was greater than the parts: more than one DJ confessed playing the whole thing straight through.
Further details? See the press release.

The debut of 18fps started out as a thriller. Swedish holidays turning to havoc on the Odessa-Riviera bullet train via Tokyo. The resulting mini-album, is a bit more than that: sort of a re-visioning of childhood outings to the cinema. Stumbling into a darkened theater in the middle of a movie, guessing at what has gone on before...and staying until the film repeats. Leave it to Radio Khartoum to go all nouvelle vague on you. Still, people swear by this one. Three bands from Sweden, two from France, and one from Estonia. All tracks exclusive (except for the one Estonia, which did appear on a cassette-only release in that country at one point).
Further details? See the press release.