LP & 4CD 52 song set
Not sure anybody asked for this, but it was certainly needed. VHF have compiled a 52 track collection across one record and four CDs which seeks to document one of the most sprawling and unquantifiable catalogues in British music history - a fool's errand, really, since 52 songs really doesn't cover it, tbh. Much of the work here is culled from private libraries and micro releases, pieced together in such a way to create a white hot tableaux of scorched inner-world/outta mind OTHERNESS. It's perhaps too late in the day for Ashtray Navigations to ever find a place in the pantheon, but a 'best of' is the kind of exercise mostly reserved for Rock Royalty, so I suppose they're at least knocking on the door. Truth is, AN are underground hall-of-famers, psychedelic art exposition in excelsis, a true monument to singular vision. Being straight outta Stoke-On-Trent in the 90s probably made it a little harder to find the requisite understanding on these shores, but there's a lot of parallels to be drawn here - Silver Apples space jam, Harry Pussy black hole descent, the avant autodidactism of Siltbreeze & Expressway, Kraut spiritualism (by way of Can's deconstructive instincts), and truly, some kind of worship of that grand, eternal notion of Rock Nirvana. Phil Todd and Melanie O'Dubhslaine have spent a lifetime inside this music. Get hold of this, and you could just about do the same. Just absolutely astonishing stuff. You'll have to go a long way to find their kind again...
“Enter the world of Ashtray Navigations, and things flip over and out pretty quickly. A languorous swoon for tabla and guitar swiftly jolts, by way of a brutish edit, into overamped squall; electronics pile up like rubble around crashing, descending sheets of copper; the four-track leaks bongwater and brown muck, while ferric oxide, chrome dioxide and cobalt fight a losing battle. An echoplex sweats it out in the corner of the room as Todd tears unruly tattoos from a dosed guitar, the amp huffing and heaving in protest. I still can't quite figure out exactly how Todd does what he does, and while I'm aware of some of the reference points, there's both magic and graft in the way he's piecing it all together. But you know what? I'm pretty sure Fritz Pfleumer never had this in mind.” - Jon Dale
"Phil. Well I am glad you're finally back from your place in Monaco and getting to work. The pictures of you with the polo mallet and the horses you sent were impressive, sure but when you sell yourself as an artist type and then are seen cavorting with those over tanned Euro trustfunders, it is alienating to your audience. You are, however, the only person I have ever met who has actually cavorted and that's why you will always be a mid-level god to me" - Henry Rollins
