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Record Collector reviews Smoke

Smoke! smoke! smoke! (that jazz cigarette)

Having impressed with their Beats For Bars project, Trickster and Martyn Savigar now expand their often-audacious mash-up concept and range of fantasy collaborators to weird, wonderful and often startling effect. In the immediate vicinity, there’s former Specimen and Banshees guitarist Jon Klein and drummer Chris Bell (also Specimen, along with many 80s giants), but also showing up in this captivating, hallucinogenic journey are Billie Holiday, Lou Reed, Catatonia, Marc Bolan and even the young John Peel, whose unmistakeable tones enthuse about woodland creatures on the intoxicating space-shuffle of Deaf Aid, before singer Anna Jacyszyn wafts in.

The mood throughout is deep, dubbed and drenched in ghosts, slow-motion symphonies planting familiar voices in fields of dreams. Billie Holiday looms in Trav’lin Light to spine-melting effect before Wild On The Sidewalk shows what might have happened if Lou Reed had taken acid instead of speed. Soul Clapp creates a warped new hip-hop hybrid, White Space is Specimen played by orchestra, while tracks such as Deuteronomy see the players stretching out after the guests have left. An opiated aural delight with more free parts available to download, and second part, the uptempo, download-only Mirrors, to follow. Feed your head.

4 stars
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Caned & Able, aside from being an interesting play on words and Biblical reference, is something of a musical collective headed by Patrick Bird and Martyn Savigar. The musicians they collaborate with are notable in their own right. To take a few examples, guitarist Jon Klein used to play for Specimen and Siouxsie and the Banshees, and drummer Chris Bell also played for Specimen as well as many other quality '80s bands. Their combined sound takes the concept of the mash–up to extremes, intermixing Billie Holliday and John Peel with Anna Jacyszyn's vocals. The group combined efforts yet again to answer our same six questions.
Q1 How did you start out making music?
Patrick Bird: I was studio trained back in 1993 by Andy Montgomery from On–U Sound. I was in post–production for the rest of the nineties working on records with Tricky, Aswad, Primal Scream and Suede – since then I've done pretty much every job there is to do in the audio business. I've got my own production company now and most of our work is mixing and mastering, but we also produce music for films, television and for brands. Martyn and I started Caned & Able five years ago to give ourselves the freedom to do what we wanted in music – that's when we started the Beats For Bars project.
Q2 What inspired your latest album?
PB: We got together with Mike Coles from Malicious Damage Records last year and made an ambitious decision to do a double album – one uptempo and one chilled. 'Smoke' is the chilled one, where we got to do a lot of experimenting and trawling through ideas we've had around for a while. We also got together with Paolo Ogliari from Milan as co–producer – chilled music is his bag, so that was a real pleasure and we found a good working formula together. There are quite a few guests featured on the album too, notably Tommy Deff and Anna Jacyzsyn on vocals. Jon Klein from The Banshees also played guitar on a lot of the tracks, Chris Bell on some drums and we obviously did a lot of audio sampling too, which I think made for a nice hybrid of sounds. Last year ended up being a very chilled year, so we only got round to making 'Smoke'. The 'Mirrors' album got left behind but we're working on it now.
Martin Savigar: 'Smoke' is one of those albums that's been around the block a few times. Different names, different tracks, you know – we'll probably do a very interesting remixes, b–sides and covers album at some point.
Q3 What process do you go through in creating a track?
MS: Lots of robust debate is a diplomatic way of putting it.
PB: It's a difficult question for us to answer because we never make two tracks in the same way. I like to start with a title to inspire me, then see what happens – basically, one of us will get an idea down and often pass it on to the others in the team. An important part of our process is not being precious about our own ideas and to let the others improve the tracks whenever possible. When we all end up in the same studio at the same time, we focus on the mixing and get the tracks finished – that's it!
Q4 Which artists influence your work?
MS: Portishead made the best album I've ever heard in 'Dummy'... faultless production. And I'm a big Bonobo fan – Simon Green's got a fantastic knack for rhythm.
PB: The Cure, Groove Armada, Gorillaz, DJ Shadow, Beethoven.
Q5 What would you say to someone listening to your music for the first time?
MS: Listen to this.
PB: Pour yourself a drink and listen to this!
Q6 What are your ambitions for your album, and for the future?
MS: We'd really like to have Roots Manuva do a rap for us – and we'll just keep making fucking good music for the cows to come home to.
PB: We're going to up the tempo a bit now – we've got plans coming out of our ears. We're just starting a Beats For Bars–style project with Kris Needs, we're remixing a bunch of Ike & Tina Turner tracks, which will eventually become its own album, and of course there's 'Mirrors' which will hopefully be ready this summer. Plans for the 'Smoke' album? To sit beautifully in people's record collections right next to 'Mirrors'.
Published June 2008

Side-Line speaks up on Smoke

Patrick Bird and Martyn Savigar aka Caned & Able plus several guest musicians realized a very diversified and quite fascinating project resulting in the Smoke album.

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Caned & Able, aside from being an interesting play on words and Biblical reference, is something of a musical collective headed by Patrick Bird and Martyn Savigar. The musicians they collaborate with are notable in their own right. To take a few examples, guitarist Jon Klein used to play for Specimen and Siouxsie and the Banshees, and drummer Chris Bell also played for Specimen as well as many other quality '80s bands. Their combined sound takes the concept of the mash–up to extremes, intermixing Billie Holliday and John Peel with Anna Jacyszyn's vocals. The group combined efforts yet again to answer our same six questions.
Q1 How did you start out making music?
Patrick Bird: I was studio trained back in 1993 by Andy Montgomery from On–U Sound. I was in post–production for the rest of the nineties working on records with Tricky, Aswad, Primal Scream and Suede – since then I've done pretty much every job there is to do in the audio business. I've got my own production company now and most of our work is mixing and mastering, but we also produce music for films, television and for brands. Martyn and I started Caned & Able five years ago to give ourselves the freedom to do what we wanted in music – that's when we started the Beats For Bars project.
Q2 What inspired your latest album?
PB: We got together with Mike Coles from Malicious Damage Records last year and made an ambitious decision to do a double album – one uptempo and one chilled. 'Smoke' is the chilled one, where we got to do a lot of experimenting and trawling through ideas we've had around for a while. We also got together with Paolo Ogliari from Milan as co–producer – chilled music is his bag, so that was a real pleasure and we found a good working formula together. There are quite a few guests featured on the album too, notably Tommy Deff and Anna Jacyzsyn on vocals. Jon Klein from The Banshees also played guitar on a lot of the tracks, Chris Bell on some drums and we obviously did a lot of audio sampling too, which I think made for a nice hybrid of sounds. Last year ended up being a very chilled year, so we only got round to making 'Smoke'. The 'Mirrors' album got left behind but we're working on it now.
Martin Savigar: 'Smoke' is one of those albums that's been around the block a few times. Different names, different tracks, you know – we'll probably do a very interesting remixes, b–sides and covers album at some point.
Q3 What process do you go through in creating a track?
MS: Lots of robust debate is a diplomatic way of putting it.
PB: It's a difficult question for us to answer because we never make two tracks in the same way. I like to start with a title to inspire me, then see what happens – basically, one of us will get an idea down and often pass it on to the others in the team. An important part of our process is not being precious about our own ideas and to let the others improve the tracks whenever possible. When we all end up in the same studio at the same time, we focus on the mixing and get the tracks finished – that's it!
Q4 Which artists influence your work?
MS: Portishead made the best album I've ever heard in 'Dummy'... faultless production. And I'm a big Bonobo fan – Simon Green's got a fantastic knack for rhythm.
PB: The Cure, Groove Armada, Gorillaz, DJ Shadow, Beethoven.
Q5 What would you say to someone listening to your music for the first time?
MS: Listen to this.
PB: Pour yourself a drink and listen to this!
Q6 What are your ambitions for your album, and for the future?
MS: We'd really like to have Roots Manuva do a rap for us – and we'll just keep making fucking good music for the cows to come home to.
PB: We're going to up the tempo a bit now – we've got plans coming out of our ears. We're just starting a Beats For Bars–style project with Kris Needs, we're remixing a bunch of Ike & Tina Turner tracks, which will eventually become its own album, and of course there's 'Mirrors' which will hopefully be ready this summer. Plans for the 'Smoke' album? To sit beautifully in people's record collections right next to 'Mirrors'.
Published June 2008

The milkman delivers his verdict on Smoke...

Caned & Able is the multi-faceted project of Patrick ‘Trickster’ Bird and Martyn Savigar, with additional contribution from drummer Chris Bell and former Siouxsie & The Banshees guitarist John Klein, who once shared stage space as part of eighties glam goth punk band Specimen, and singer Anna Jacyszyn, and the attentive listener will also spot John Peel, Marc Bolan and Billie Holliday visiting from beyond the grave.

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Zeitgeist. Caned & Able - Smoke
Cheesus, I feel quite wasted after that! In fact, it's probably the furthest gone I've been sober, since the night I slept in the dub tent at Glastonbury back in the [koff] early eighties. Yes, Patrick Bird and Martyn Savigar have returned with a truly bizarre and captivating set of mishity mashups, mixes, loops and doohickeys, quite unbecoming in anyone over twenty one.
They've brought along a few people who were once nearly famous such as former Specimen and Siouxsie & the Banshees guitarist Jon Klein and drummer Chris Bell, who I once saw playing with Spear Of Destiny. They were shite. Dead people being easier to work with, there's also appearances from Billie Holliday, Marc Bolan and John Peel. It's a strange old world where the ghosts of Astralasia and Future Sound Of London take Moby outside for a good kicking, then proceed to show the world how This Sort Of Thing should be done.
And it's ended up the kind of album that just lives permanently in your hi-fi and slowly drives away your few remaining friends as you tell them how they Must, I Repeat, Must, listen to 'Orchestra' through headphones. That's when you're not extolling the far out alien rock of 'Deuteronomy' or the sublime Billie Holliday sampling in 'Trav’lin Light'. For sure, there are a couple of tracks where the spectre of a Guardian readers dinner party looms into relief, but if you bat those aside, there is a wonderful adventure here for all to enjoy.
If you want to pick one song to demonstrate the wonders contained herein, go for 'Deaf Aid', which features Canadian jazz chanteuse Anna Jacyszyn, and prepare to be gently blown away into another world.

Cue the music with Cuemix

So when the smoke is gone you can see clear again… When I listened to “Smoke” by Caned& Able for the first time I really was speechless. This album is a very multilayered three-dimensional labyrinth of styles and sounds. 

But don’t get me wrong I am talking about a labyrinth that you joyfully get lost in – a journey into laid-back music with a massive background.

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Caned & Able, aside from being an interesting play on words and Biblical reference, is something of a musical collective headed by Patrick Bird and Martyn Savigar. The musicians they collaborate with are notable in their own right. To take a few examples, guitarist Jon Klein used to play for Specimen and Siouxsie and the Banshees, and drummer Chris Bell also played for Specimen as well as many other quality '80s bands. Their combined sound takes the concept of the mash–up to extremes, intermixing Billie Holliday and John Peel with Anna Jacyszyn's vocals. The group combined efforts yet again to answer our same six questions.
Q1 How did you start out making music?
Patrick Bird: I was studio trained back in 1993 by Andy Montgomery from On-U Sound. I was in post-production for the rest of the nineties working on records with Tricky, Aswad, Primal Scream and Suede – since then I've done pretty much every job there is to do in the audio business. I've got my own production company now and most of our work is mixing and mastering, but we also produce music for films, television and for brands. Martyn and I started Caned & Able five years ago to give ourselves the freedom to do what we wanted in music – that's when we started the Beats For Bars project.
Q2 What inspired your latest album?
PB: We got together with Mike Coles from Malicious Damage Records last year and made an ambitious decision to do a double album – one uptempo and one chilled. 'Smoke' is the chilled one, where we got to do a lot of experimenting and trawling through ideas we've had around for a while. We also got together with Paolo Ogliari from Milan as co-producer – chilled music is his bag, so that was a real pleasure and we found a good working formula together. There are quite a few guests featured on the album too, notably Tommy Deff and Anna Jacyzsyn on vocals. Jon Klein from The Banshees also played guitar on a lot of the tracks, Chris Bell on some drums and we obviously did a lot of audio sampling too, which I think made for a nice hybrid of sounds. Last year ended up being a very chilled year, so we only got round to making 'Smoke'. The 'Mirrors' album got left behind but we're working on it now.
Martin Savigar: 'Smoke' is one of those albums that's been around the block a few times. Different names, different tracks, you know – we'll probably do a very interesting remixes, b–sides and covers album at some point.
Q3 What process do you go through in creating a track?
MS: Lots of robust debate is a diplomatic way of putting it.
PB: It's a difficult question for us to answer because we never make two tracks in the same way. I like to start with a title to inspire me, then see what happens – basically, one of us will get an idea down and often pass it on to the others in the team. An important part of our process is not being precious about our own ideas and to let the others improve the tracks whenever possible. When we all end up in the same studio at the same time, we focus on the mixing and get the tracks finished – that's it!
Q4 Which artists influence your work?
MS: Portishead made the best album I've ever heard in 'Dummy'... faultless production. And I'm a big Bonobo fan – Simon Green's got a fantastic knack for rhythm.
PB: The Cure, Groove Armada, Gorillaz, DJ Shadow, Beethoven.
Q5 What would you say to someone listening to your music for the first time?
MS: Listen to this.
PB: Pour yourself a drink and listen to this!
Q6 What are your ambitions for your album, and for the future?
MS: We'd really like to have Roots Manuva do a rap for us – and we'll just keep making fucking good music for the cows to come home to.
PB: We're going to up the tempo a bit now – we've got plans coming out of our ears. We're just starting a Beats For Bars–style project with Kris Needs, we're remixing a bunch of Ike & Tina Turner tracks, which will eventually become its own album, and of course there's 'Mirrors' which will hopefully be ready this summer. Plans for the 'Smoke' album? To sit beautifully in people's record collections right next to 'Mirrors'.
Published June 2008

CMU Music Network

Caned & Able's interview for the Xfm Remix show

Caned & Able, aside from being an interesting play on words and Biblical reference, is something of a musical collective headed by Patrick Bird and Martyn Savigar. The musicians they collaborate with are notable in their own right. To take a few examples, guitarist Jon Klein used to play for Specimen and Siouxsie and the Banshees, and drummer Chris Bell also played for Specimen as well as many other quality '80s bands. Their combined sound takes the concept of the mash–up to extremes, intermixing Billie Holliday and John Peel with Anna Jacyszyn's vocals. The group combined efforts yet again to answer our same six questions.

AddThis Social Bookmark Button

Continue Reading

Zeitgeist. Caned & Able - Smoke
Cheesus, I feel quite wasted after that! In fact, it's probably the furthest gone I've been sober, since the night I slept in the dub tent at Glastonbury back in the [koff] early eighties. Yes, Patrick Bird and Martyn Savigar have returned with a truly bizarre and captivating set of mishity mashups, mixes, loops and doohickeys, quite unbecoming in anyone over twenty one.
They've brought along a few people who were once nearly famous such as former Specimen and Siouxsie & the Banshees guitarist Jon Klein and drummer Chris Bell, who I once saw playing with Spear Of Destiny. They were shite. Dead people being easier to work with, there's also appearances from Billie Holliday, Marc Bolan and John Peel. It's a strange old world where the ghosts of Astralasia and Future Sound Of London take Moby outside for a good kicking, then proceed to show the world how This Sort Of Thing should be done.
And it's ended up the kind of album that just lives permanently in your hi-fi and slowly drives away your few remaining friends as you tell them how they Must, I Repeat, Must, listen to 'Orchestra' through headphones. That's when you're not extolling the far out alien rock of 'Deuteronomy' or the sublime Billie Holliday sampling in 'Trav’lin Light'. For sure, there are a couple of tracks where the spectre of a Guardian readers dinner party looms into relief, but if you bat those aside, there is a wonderful adventure here for all to enjoy.
If you want to pick one song to demonstrate the wonders contained herein, go for 'Deaf Aid', which features Canadian jazz chanteuse Anna Jacyszyn, and prepare to be gently blown away into another world.

Zeitgeist has its say

Cheesus, I feel quite wasted after that! In fact, it's probably the furthest gone I've been sober, since the night I slept in the dub tent at Glastonbury back in the [koff] early eighties. Yes, Patrick Bird and Martyn Savigar have returned with a truly bizarre and captivating set of mishity mashups, mixes, loops and doohickeys, quite unbecoming in anyone over twenty one.

AddThis Social Bookmark Button

Continue Reading

Zeitgeist. Caned & Able - Smoke
Cheesus, I feel quite wasted after that! In fact, it's probably the furthest gone I've been sober, since the night I slept in the dub tent at Glastonbury back in the [koff] early eighties. Yes, Patrick Bird and Martyn Savigar have returned with a truly bizarre and captivating set of mishity mashups, mixes, loops and doohickeys, quite unbecoming in anyone over twenty one.
They've brought along a few people who were once nearly famous such as former Specimen and Siouxsie & the Banshees guitarist Jon Klein and drummer Chris Bell, who I once saw playing with Spear Of Destiny. They were shite. Dead people being easier to work with, there's also appearances from Billie Holliday, Marc Bolan and John Peel. It's a strange old world where the ghosts of Astralasia and Future Sound Of London take Moby outside for a good kicking, then proceed to show the world how This Sort Of Thing should be done.
And it's ended up the kind of album that just lives permanently in your hi-fi and slowly drives away your few remaining friends as you tell them how they Must, I Repeat, Must, listen to 'Orchestra' through headphones. That's when you're not extolling the far out alien rock of 'Deuteronomy' or the sublime Billie Holliday sampling in 'Trav’lin Light'. For sure, there are a couple of tracks where the spectre of a Guardian readers dinner party looms into relief, but if you bat those aside, there is a wonderful adventure here for all to enjoy.
If you want to pick one song to demonstrate the wonders contained herein, go for 'Deaf Aid', which features Canadian jazz chanteuse Anna Jacyszyn, and prepare to be gently blown away into another world.

Smoke gets in the Groove (i Svensk)

English club music duo Martyn Savigar and Patrick "Trickster" Bird continues his sound experimentation and this time it takes using the old Siouxsie and The Banshees guitarist Jon Klein, drummer Chris Bell and singer Anna Jacyszyn.

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