History

More than two years in the making, “Arabic Yodelling” was Renaldo and Ted the Loaf’s second release on Ralph issued in 1983. Recorded in a home studio (Sneff’s Surgery) on 4 track, the pieces here were constructed using tape manipulation, loops, found sound and conventional instruments, including a keyboard for the first time.

Dave, “The title comes from ‘Like Some Kous-Kous Western’. There’s a bit where Brian sings something that sounds vaguely eastern or Arabic and somehow mutates into something like a yodel – I commented that it sounded like Arabic yodelling and that was filed away somewhere for future use.”

Artwork Sketches

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Track Commentary

Green Candle
Dave, “The title comes from a line in the play Pere Ubu by Alfred Jarry – ‘by my green candle’. I’d heard it on an Open University program and it became a phrase we used on dice evenings.”
Brian, “The lyrics were inspired by the writings of Baudelaire – about the decadent city, it’s inhabitants, those who live for it and thrive in it – the ‘bon viveurs’ and creatures of the night. At the time I was teaching at a school of architecture and Baudelaire’s imagery was a point of reference for some students of urban design.”

Bearded Cats
Dave, “It grew out of something that started from the two of us just playing guitar together. It had a kind of jazzy feel to it and the lyrics grew out of that; the idea of these two guys in some dingy club playing this jazz number. They’re not too hot so ‘every now and then we play a bum chord’. Brian knew a guy who could play violin and he came in one day to record his part long after the track was otherwise finished – I never even met him.”

Dichotomy Rag
Dave, “This uses something called a fragmenter, which was a loop tape made up of lengths of magnetic tape and leader tape. It was run through a three-head tape deck set on record. The output of this deck fed into another tape recorder, which recorded the output of the first deck. This meant that only the bits of music that fell onto a piece of magnetic tape were recorded and then subsequently recorded onto the second tape deck. So although we were playing continuously only fragments of our playing were recorded. It was just another way to try something new. Once we had this basic track Brian recorded the overdubs, having learnt to play to the backing, something that was beyond me.”

Wilf in Builth
Dave, “I went on a walking holiday in mid-Wales and on the holiday met someone called Wilf. The holiday ended up in a place called Builth Wells which, most people just call Builth. Builth is actually pronounced ‘bilth’. So ‘Wilf in Bilth’, I just liked the sound of it.”

Clean Gender
‘Clean Gender’ is an anagram of ‘Green Candle’ and is sort of a reprise.

J.P.W.B.C.
Dave, “When we were mixing the album I had a short instrumental backing that sounded vaguely Japanese. We’d hired a varispeed tape deck to master the album on and we found that we could slow down the violin part on ‘Bearded Cats’ to fit with this Japanese-like backing I’d made. So ‘JPWBC’ simply stands for Japanese piece with Bearded Cats. Or, just pretending we’re Burmese coolies.”

Like Some Kous-Kous Western
The title came from the idea that if you moved a spaghetti western eastwards it would be a cous cous western.