Fat Roland's top ten comfort listens - 8: Kiasmos's Kiasmos

Number 8 in my top ten comfort-listens is Kiasmos's Kiasmos

Album name: Kiasmos

Artist: Kiasmos

Who they sound like according to Spotify's recommendations: Rival Consoles, Max Cooper, Jon Hopkins

Most comforting musical element: The sheer musicality of their classical influences

Least comforting musical element: The fact that I used this as intro music at my 2015 Edinburgh Fringe show, which was such an intense experience I have only just started to listen to this album again

What it's like being smothered by (in a good way): The endless stares of arm-crossed audience members with furrowed brows that suggest their one burning thought: "well, this is NOTHING like Michael McIntyre"... and then it turns out they quite liked it

Comfort food it should be paired with: A plate of deep-fried chips that's been marked up £3 because it's the Edinburgh Fringe

Public figure I would recommend this album to so they can chill the heck out: MICHAEL CRAPPING MCINTYRE

What the opposite of this album sounds like: My forthcoming 2019 Edinburgh Fringe show Seven Inch, showing 1.15pm every day at the News Room from August 1st to 13th (see what I did there?)

Click here to see the comfort listening series in full.

Fat Roland's top ten comfort listens - 9: Orbital's In Sides

Number 9 in my top ten comfort-listens is Orbital's In Sides.

Album name: In Sides

Artist: Orbital

Who they sound like according to Spotify's recommendations: Underworld, The Future Sound Of London, The Orb (pretty lazy if you ask me)

Most comforting musical element: The climax of Out There Somewhere

Least comforting musical element: The creaking of The Box, which is even more scary on the 12", I mean, seriously, I've not been near a box since

What it's like being smothered by (in a good way): An avalanche of leaflets from the Green Party warning us of the impending climactic doom suggested by the album, but, y'know, with a list of useful tips like switching off your tap when washing your balls

Comfort food it should be paired with: A lovely refuse skip of discarded hummus sandwiches

Public figure I would recommend this album to so they can chill the heck out: Jeremy chuffing Clarkson, who should be made to listen to this while driving an electric car

What the opposite of this album sounds like: A green and pleasant land, like out of that song

Click here to see the comfort listening series in full.

Fat Roland's top ten comfort listens - 10: Ceephax's Camelot Arcade

Number 10 in my top ten comfort-listens is Ceephax's Camelot Arcade.

Album name: Camelot Arcade

Artist: Ceephax

Who they sound like according to Spotify's recommendations: EOD, DMX Krew and Bogdan Raczynski

Most comforting musical element: All those cheery major chords

Least comforting musical element: The Camelot-themed suit of armour you have to wear while listening

What it's like being smothered by (in a good way): Chainmail, but soft chainmail that's made of kittens that may have been slaughtered by a sword-wielding knight but let's not think about that right now

Comfort food it should be paired with: A glistening ham soaked in mead and possibly walked on by flies

Public figure I would recommend this album to so they can chill the heck out: Jacob Rees-Mogg - it's themed on his era so he'd be bang up for it

What the opposite of this album sounds like: A dystopian future full of spaceships doing bad things

Click here to see the comfort listening series in full.

My top ten comfort listens - introduction

To misquote Venetian Snares, the world is a cavalcade of pain and Brexitist horrible hardcore pom poms. Jacob Rees-Mogg wants us all riding penny farthings and everyone's ruining milkshakes on fascists. I want to block it all out.

Sometimes, I need a comfort-listen. Music that will smother me in sonic cotton wool: beats to becalm my blood pressure. Music that I can whack on my computer speakers so I can, trance-like, get on with some interesting creative work without all the noise of the modern world.

So here goes a mini-series of my top ten comfort listens - the background music that sends me most easily to my happy place, like a snoozing cat.

It is, by its nature, a very personal list which I shall blog hourly throughout May 31st, starting at 9am with this introductory post and finishing with my number one choice at 7pm. The top ten is pretty arbitrary, so don't take each album's placement too seriously.

I'm also going to write it quickly, from my gut, without much thought - after all, that's blogging's USP, right? To do this, I need a framework. Each post will answer these questions.

Album name:
Artist:
Who they sound like according to Spotify's recommendations:
Most comforting musical element:
Least comforting musical element:
What it's like being smothered by (in a good way):
Comfort food it should be paired with:
Public figure I would recommend this album to so they can chill the heck out:
What the opposite of this album sounds like:

Click here to see the comfort listening series in full.

This can't just be a blog post moaning about trains, can it?

Utter flipping disaster. Thursday was meant to be a mega day in Liverpool. It wasn't to be.

Firstly, my appearance at a spoken word night in Liverpool was kiboshed by a power cut. The venue was without electricity and apparently my performance wasn't going to be electric enough to compensate. We quickly rescheduled. One of them things, innit.

That wasn't the annoying bit. I'd decided to be clever and get to Liverpool early to check out The Beatles Story, an exhibition about the Merseybeat band that invented the submarine or something. I'm working on a commission and I was hoping to foment some fab four fun in my brain follicles.

I hadn't counted on our awful trains. They weren't just delayed - they were deleted. Not a single train in my local area for hours. Signalling failure.

But Fat Roland, I hear you say, this can't just be a blog post moaning about trains not being on time.

Yes it is. It is a flipping blog post moaning about trains being rubbish. Not a single train. FOR HOURS. I went to see some superhero thing at the cinema instead - the one with the glowy woman and Samuel L Jackson looking about 12. It was quite fun, but it was no trip to a Beatles museum.

Trains, you ruined my afternoon. I did eventually get to Liverpool, moments before I learned of the power cut, and even that trip was a litany of lateness and last-minute platform changes.

Maybe this blog should be about trains. Forget electronic music. Each blog post is just me screaming at a departures board, or delving into 92 pockets to find the ticket I had just seconds ago, or weeping into an expensive panini.

To paraphrase The Thick Of It's Steve Fleming: "Choo flipping choo."

Fat Roland: Seven Inch

Hey look, it's an actual show!

Fat Roland: Seven Inch at the Edinburgh Fringe
Aug 1st to 13th 13:15 (1 hour)
Comedy (spoken word, absurdist)
Laughing Horse @ The Newsroom - The Basement (Venue 93)
Show details here

In the last record shop still standing, Manchester comic Fat Roland re-examines his life through not-so-teenage kicks, surrounded by forgettable (and unforgettable) pop music. Amid the cobwebbed racks and fading seven-inch singles, he faces his 45th birthday alone – when a new opportunity comes knocking, will Roland pack up his gramophone? A five-star, one-idiot commission for The Lowry, Salford, adapted especially for the Edinburgh Fringe. ‘A comedic onslaught of musical puns, cultural references and audience interaction.’ ***** (UpstagedManchester.com). ’A funny, silly and entertaining show that comedy and music fans will love.’ **** (TheReviewsHub.com).

Being Frank & Bobbins: celebrating the life of Chris Sievey

Being Frank: The Chris Sievey Story is out on DVD today. Do get it if you can. It's a glorious celebration of a man who was endlessly creative, gleefully eccentric and ultimately tragic. Here's the cartoon me holding the DVD for dear life.

If you're quick, you can just about catch the Frank Sidebottom Bobbins exhibition at Manchester Central Library. It closes tomorrow ("one of them Tuesdays", says the publicity). Pictured here is his actual head - he only ever had two, and this is the only one that survives.

Incidentally, and this is a total side note, I'm currently watching the Batman prequel Gotham. I've had to stop watching because the scripting is so shoddy. In the episode I've just seen, a whole bunch of people have been murdered, each one with their throats slit. It's how they connected the murders.

Twenty minutes later, someone mentions in passing that they also had crosses drawn on their forehead in blood. Mentioned in passing? What? Surely THAT would be up-front and centre much earlier on. Gah.

If only they took a Batbottom and Bobbins route instead (pictured above).

One thing about the exhibition is that there are lot of lists. Pages and pages of lists. We've all made and neglected to-do lists, but Chris Sievey made it into an artform. There's one graph-paper page of things to do, segmented into thematic sections, tonnes of to-dos each with its own little hand-drawn tick box. Not a single thing was ticked off. I relate.

Pictured above is a fun list - Frank Sidebottom's top 5 computers. I had a Spectrum 2.

Considering the record shop theme of Fat Roland: Seven Inch at the Edinburgh Fringe (SEO-friendly plug), I had to snap this highly advanced record player. One of the key themes of Being Frank is Chris Sievey's music career, as it happens - especially the moment a badly-timed strike scuppered his chance at stardom.

I suppose if he'd been more successful, there wouldn't have been a spirited crowd-funding campaign to get Being Frank made, and I wouldn't have got my name in the credits as a backer, and there wouldn't have been such a cluttered and creative exhibition in Manchester which closes tomorrow (one of them Tuesdays).

Incidentally, in this blog post I have very secretly hidden a photograph of me meeting Frank Sidebottom ages ago. Can you spot it?

The Pet Shop Boys and Madonna: Into The Minimal Groove

Not that I haven't got a life or anything, but I have spent many hours searching for the perfect Pet Shop Boys mashup.

You remember mashups. Songs that have been cut-and-shut together, like a Mini Metro welded to a Transit Van: totally unofficial, sometimes ugly, potential death trap.

I think I have found the perfect PSB mashup, and it comes from the bottom drawer of their back catalogue. Into The Minimal Groove mixes Minimal (Tocadisco's Sunday At Space Remix) with Madonna's Into The Groove.

Whoever did this spent a lot of time working on Madge's vocals. They work brilliantly over a track that likes to take its time: it's full of surprises.

And like my dodgy cover version of Carly Rae Jepson, they've kept the title hook until much later in the track - it's five minutes before Madonna says "get into the groove", and even then it almost passes by unnoticed. A deliberate trick to neutralise the original track to make something new and interesting.

I can't stop listening to it. You could say.... ahem... [steps closer to microphone] that I have very much got into its groove.

There's a video of sorts, which you can watch here.