JUNE 2007DESPITE HIS FAMED HATRED OF PEOPLE LEO HAS NOW SOLD OUT AND IS ACCEPTING 'FRIENDS', EVEN HUMAN ONES! WONDERS NEVER CEASE
THE 4 UNRELEASED PIECES ABOVE ARE FROM 2006 AND ARE TEMPORARY, ( A MORE VARIED SELECTION OF WORK WILL BE FORTHCOMING) SOME ELEMENTS THEREOF ARE SCHEDULED TO BE USED IN A COLLABORATION WITH BASTARD NOISE
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The Slayer family were devout Catholics, and after serving as an altar boy, Leo was inducted into the choir under the educated ear of Father Dermot MacHale, the Parish Priest. To this day Leo attributes “the finding of his voice†to Father MacHale, who gave many special singing instruction to the boy chorister.
He moved up to London in late 1967, right at the moment that the youth revolution was changing the world. Here he met painters, musicians, anarchists and The Angry Brigade, started writing poetry and working on a book of erotic verse. At work he designed record covers for The Pitchley Boys, and illustrated top shelf 60’s magazines. He frequented Soho and Kensington folk clubs and sometimes got up to play the harmonica. He went freelance as an artist, but he got into trouble with the law, had a mild breakdown and came back down to his home town, Pitchley - landing with a bump.
He stayed on a houseboat for a while on Shoreham’s river Adur, licking his wounds. It was now 1969. He worked in a factory that imported German cars. Some local friends were playing at night in bands and he joined them, now singing as well as playing the harmonica. He flung himself into music and started writing songs, setting some of his old poems to music. He gradually built up a band of mates that called itself Patches. Patches started playing gigs all over the south coast.....
REVIEWS
"Like a remix to an oddball BBC sound effects records, Sinister Noises Volume One perhaps, Leoslayer's 14 track minimalist grave-hop isn't for those in a hurry or indeed anyone looking for a knees up. In fact so far removed are this deno's chilling soundscapes from routine jukebox fare that they regularly blur the distinction between atmosphere and music, which is a skill in itself. The stripped down arrangements, occasionally erupting in a fountain of cathartic clatter, have all the eerie paranoia of a horror film soundtrack and create a genuine discomfort which given a set of headphones and a lonely night-bus would swiftly graduate to terrifying musical laxative. It's electronica at its darkest and although its undoubtedly a difficult listen, which incidentally is probably exactly as intended, its still a damn sight more interesting than the squeaky voiced thrashmetal I was expecting, even if it is a bit harrowing with the lights off. "
"I can see opinions being divided on this one. On one hand, avant garde tuneless bollocks. That's probably the line they'll quote. On the other, something wicked this way comes. Personally, I'm a bit scared, but in a good way. 'New Toy' is seven tracks of nightmare ambience. There's no beat, no tune and little structure, just a collage of threatening and unnerving sounds with painful dynamics made by synthesisers, guitars and samples, with an underlying subterranean drone that fills you with a sense of dread throughout. In a way, this is a marriage between God Speed! You Black Emperor and Future Sounds of London with the whole thing blessed by Brian Eno, Bill Drummond and Philip Glass. Not so much chill out room as freak out dungeon. I can see how they managed to freak out a bunch of hippies at one of their gigs. 'Stolen Path' continues the dread but has a more Einsturzende Neubaten industrial feel to it, with factory death rattles and screams of 'there's no fucking freedom!' thrown in for good measure. An intense montage of unpleasant noises and the perfect soundtrack for a psychotic episode. In a good way"
both from SANDMAN magazine
"Another wonderfully bizarre missive from LeoSlayer, Surprisingly, it’s not actually that noisy, avoiding the overtly overwhelming attack of an all-out aural assault for a far more subtle minimalist approach. Perhaps it’s just the geek in me, but there’s a definite feel of being space bound with this, with plenty of 50’s sci-fi movie-esque bleeps and bloops, coupled with some more sinister Blade Runner-style foley sound effects. It all sounds pleasingly artificial, and there is always that feeling of all-pervading, thrumming, subliminal evil to it that means that whilst working on a soothing ambient level, when you decide to really concentrate there’s enough there to keep you attentive and intrigued. It stays largely consistent for the first half hour or so, before fluidly and unexpectedly phasing into a panicky beat fest followed by a twanged guitar section that sounds like Ry Cooder on Mir.
Kunal Nandi - Collective Zine
The Sound Projector
