John Zorn - Rimbaud (USA 2012)

Uncle Roddus New CD of The Week

Saving the best till last, here is the latest John Zorn arrival from Amazon. Another of the many releases from 2012, this particular album has surprised me as to how much I actually like it. I was a bit apprehensive about this one after reading reviews and descriptions because this release has 4 extended pieces from Zorn all in a different style. The first track is one of his classical pieces, the usual chaotic sounding style in which he writes in this genre but one that I have enjoyed more so than some of his others. The second track gets right into some serious industrial noise and effects and again one whose atmospherics and electronics has really resonated with me, in both cases above I couldn't for the life of me tell you why. I'm sure the music description in the above image will explain far better than I can but the third track is more into the jazz side of things and is a most impressive Free piano recital. The set closes with what they call a Game piece, and consists of John creating sound effects on various instruments backing readings from the text of Arthur Rimbaud and another track that just works and I have enjoyed very much. Overall I am very very impressed, Zorn, coming up to his 60th birthday this year is at the peak of his powers. I can't wait for the next CD to arrive in the mail.5/5

The Glitterhouse - The Colour (USA 1968)

Rare MP3 Album Of The Week

1.Tinkerbell's Mind (4:44)

2.Princess Of The Gingerland (4:23)

3.Sassafrass And Cinnamon (4:10)

4.Child Of Darkness (Journey Of A Child Traveler) (4:23)

5.I Lost Me A Friend (4:15)

6.Times Are Getting Hard (3:47)

7.Where Have You Been Hiding (2:52)

8.Hey Woman (3:59)

9.Happy To Have You Here Again (3:36)

10.Barbarella (Bonus Track) (2:42)

11.Love Drags Me Down (Bonus Track) (3:43)

12.I Love All The Love In You (Bonus Track) (3:50)

13.Rumpelstiltskin (Bonus Track) (2:24)

14.Ode To An Unknown Girl (Bonus Track) (2:04)

15.Alice In Wonderland (Bonus Track) (2:30)

16.So Many Roads (Bonus Track) (2:52)

17.New York Blues (Bonus Track) (3:40)

18.Born To The Blues (Bonus Track) (2:09)

19.It's Going To Take Some Time (Bonus Track) (1:49)

20.Grandma, Why Do You Live In Harlem? (Bonus Track) (4:08)

21.Going Home (Bonus Track) (4:58)

22.Rainbow Child (Bonus Track) (3:28)

23.For Ann, Liz And Harvee (Bonus Track) (3:14)

"Tinkerbell's Mind" is one of those idiosyncratic psychedelic pop ditties that you find on one of those compilations of lost 60s English Psychedelic pop. Its a cool track with lyrics that generate a smirk and some nice psych guitar. The other 8 tracks that made up the original album from 1968 are also a good listen and although not essential, are certainly entertaining and enjoyable. Very British, quintessential psychedelic pop. The rest of this extended set is a mixed bag of stuff but has some worthwhile tracks.

Rating 2.5/5.

Damien Youth - Festival of Death (USA?1995)

Mutant Sounds Album Of The Week

1. Strange (3:07)

2. Distant Star (2:56)

3. I'm Afraid (2:01)

4. Carolyn Grey (4:01)

5. Dead Flowers (3:03)

6. Aries Child (2:26)

7. God of Violence (6:23)

8. Sex Cult (5:41)

9. The Priest (5:06)

10.Ghost of Semarias (4:32)

11.Holy Circle (3:38)

12.Final Orisen to His People (3:23)

13.I Plant the Seed (4:01)

14.The Serpent and the Fool (5:32)

15.Lover's Mask (3:48)

More obscure weirdness from MS Blog, although this release is much more accessible than a lot of the other music on that blog.  This guy records and releases his own music and this particular Cassette release kicks off in a psychedelic folksy way and could take a bow to Sid Barrett. The recordings are pretty lofi but he has a good voice, with some impressive vocal melodies on the first part of this album which sounds much like a Demo recording with the songs sounding quite impressive but much in need of a producer and a professional recording studio, plenty of unrealised potential. After the first 5 tracks proceed along in a similar style as described above, track 6 acts as a transition song, being a slow number but sounding very Gothic and leads us into the next part of this set where things get much more heavy with "God Of Violence" taking us in to a sort of Gothic industrial metal direction. Things sort of take a turn for the worst at this point, although again there is potential in these songs. After this 4 track interlude we are back to the folksy songs again which all sound vocally similar to the earlier ones and I really start to lose interest in this music. Essentially sounds like a demo recording, very lofi but full of potential if these songs were recorded professionally. Rating 2/5.  

Massive Attack - Protection (UK 1994)

Uncle Roddus CD of The Week

This is a highly rated album and was familiar to me from various best of lists and reviews and the fact that I had one of the songs on one of my Triple J compilations from back then. Because of this, I finally decided to pick up a copy one day some time back, possible on one of my Warehouse binges. Has sat in the CD shelf, pretty much unlistened since I obtained it. It's been difficult to assign it much time this week with other new arrivals distracting me but I'll give it a brief review.

The music is a bass heavy blend of Hip-Hop/dance/electronica with similarities to Trip-Hop i.e Portishead. Whatever you want to call this music, Massive Attack were at the pinnacle and  this album is a fine set of songs. I'm not gonna rave about this, it is good, I enjoy it, the beats are good, the vocals are good and the effects and samples make for an interesting album. Maybe slightly overated or perhaps not aged all that well, this is not an album that will spend a lot of time in my CD player but is good enough to be a keeper and get dusted off once in a while for a late night listen.Rating 3/5.

VA - The Essence of Swedish Progressive Music 1967 - 1979

Uncle Roddus New CD of The Week

Well, this wasn't going to be my review for my latest New CD for this week, it was suppose to be a John Zorn CD I have been enjoying all week. Also I was spose to go to the gym tonight after work and do some stuff in the garden, BUT Look what arrived in the mail box today and with Mrs. Roddus away in the city for the night, well what more could I do but slag off and blast this lot at neighbour annoying volume all evening.

I stumbled upon this box set on my Internet travels a few years ago and managed to find a version online to sample. I fell in love with this set very quickly but although still available to buy it was quite pricey due to there not being that many copies around and also I think it is out of print, so I burned it to CD and enjoyed it that way. When I start to like a release as much as this, I do really want to have a proper physical copy for my collection and so with a bit of spare cash this month I took the plunge and duly ordered it from Amazon, paying the princely sum of just over $60 per CD for this 4 disc set, Ouch! 

So is it worth it, Well, Hell Yess! over 5 hours of 70's Swedish Progressive Guitar Wank, I'm in 7th heaven. Already being quite familiar with several fantastic tracks on this collection had made for an excellent evenings entertainment. This lot is just chocked full of great and quite often instantly memorable guitar riffing, with tracks ranging from Jazz-Rock to slower atmospheric folksy instrumentals, Floydian  soundscapes, heavy psych and prog. I notice a strong Zappa presence as well as the afore mentioned Floyd and of course Hendrix. Many countries have very strong music scenes that go totally unnoticed out side of their borders and the Swedish scene of this period and this particular branch of rock is certainly outstanding, with most of these groups recordings being very rare. Although chock full of melodies and some great vocals, this music isn't the sort of thing that gets exposure on radio, mores the pity. Highly Recommended for any prog heads and gets a Roddus Rating of  5/5.

R.I.P Mutant Sounds

As some reader know, I am a frequent visitor to The Mutant Sounds Blog and have enjoyed many of the rare and obscure albums that they have highlighted over there. This Morning I awoke to the News that due to "the recent news that issues pertaining to copyright online are now being re-interpreted by the powers-that-be in alarming new ways means that there's no point in pushing this boulder up a hill any longer." Therefore the blog administers have deleted all remaining links to the nearly 3000 out of print albums that they have introduced to the wider world over the last 6 years. After months of battling file hosting sites in the aftermath of the Megaupload shut-down , this latest development has finally put an end to what is one of the best and oldest music blogs on the net. Many of the artists posted on the site have supported their music being exposed to a wider audience because they realise that their music is not commercially available or viable and they are more than pleased to have their work exposed to the few who will appreciate  it but would not have ever come across it other ways. I even understand some artists having their work reissued in limited editions after exposure on Mutant Sounds. Although the Powers-That-Be probably aren't directly targeting a blog like Mutant Sounds, it appears their online copyright crackdowns have effected the blog to the extent where they have had to give up. This appears pretty selfish to me as they are mostly worried about the lessening of income from the part of the industry that makes far more money than it needs to. I can say that from my experience I have purchased quite a number of CDs by artists whose music I was able to sample on blogs and would never have discovered otherwise and was able to track down their CDs. Many of the artists on Mutant Sounds have no commercially available music and so now they will go unheard. Goodbye MS I will miss your great and obscure music.

Postscript: Due to overwhelming support, the cool dudes at Mutant Sounds have re thought their strategies and are keeping the blog alive but with a slightly different model.

Tomorrow - tomorrow (UK 1968)

Uncle Roddus Rare MP3 Album Of The Week

It turns out that I was quite familiar with several tracks from this late 60s psychedelic band, with those tracks cropping up on several compilations I have. All the ingredients of the psychedelic scene in England are here in all their glory with the obvious nods to The Beatles and Pink Floyd. A set of solid tunes that although sound resolutely of the time and place, have aged remarkably well  and are revealing a high level of creativity on repeated listens. Definitely a highlight of the scene. This particular version also has a bunch of additional tracks from band offshoots and solo stuff from Vocalist Keith West, especially His excellent " The Kid Was a Killer", which I have enjoyed for many years. My Rating 4/5.

Jimi Hendrix - Blues (USA 1994)

Uncle Roddus CD Of The Week

This weeks CD from my collection is yet another in the hugely vast array of Hendrix compilations. A massive cash cow, Jimi's back catalogue has been used and abused by all sorts of profiteering individuals and organisations. You can only own several Hendrix compilations before you start recycling songs over and over again but there will always be a small handful of releases that stand out above the rest and I think "Blues" is one of them. Jimi's psychedelic classic rock was rooted firmly in the blues and this well chosen and sequenced set shows James Marshall giving us some of his best Blues chops with some of his own compositions mixed with some blues covers. After kicking off with an acoustic version of Jimi's own "Hear My Train Comin' ", we get treated to a fabulous instrumental version of "Born Under A Bad Sign". There are two Muddy Waters songs here and one wonders what Muddy thought of Jimi Tearing up the blues like that. Plenty of the usual Hendrix guitar pyrotechnics through out this collection makes for a great collection for any Jimi fan with several of the tracks stretching out past 6 or 7 minutes and sounding like live recordings. It is pretty hard to go past Hendrix for the most powerful guitar music ever put down on tape and with 11 examples clocking in at 72 minutes you can't go wrong. Rating 4.5/5. 

Hoahio - Happy Mail (Japan 1997)

Uncle Roddus Mutant Sounds Album Of The Week

It's has been a difficult week to find much time to listen to this weeks collection of albums what with my very busy work schedule and a very good John Zorn CD turning up in the mail to side track me, but I have managed to assault the ears with this on occasion in dribs and drabs.  A weird collection of  Japanese electronica, it has some interesting moments, usually on the more slightly conventional songs like the quirky "Less Than Lovers, More Than Friends". Some of the more bizarre soundscapes though leave me mostly unimpressed, apart from the occasional cool sound effects and I haven't really connected with most of this set. A typically strange Japanese recording and gets a rating of 2/5.

Goat Hill - 3rd March 2013

Uncle Roddus Tramping Diary:Tramp No.133

Goat Hill - 3rd March 2013

A lovely tramp 3 of us did up this hill overlooking the town of Otira. We met just before 9am at the Otira road bridge on a warm clear morning and headed up Barrack creek until we found the track marker on the True Left of the very dry stream bed. The track up Goat Hill is in very good condition and is well marked with orange markers. The forest is just beautiful and we made good time to the bushline. Westland hasn't had any significant rain since the heavy rains over Xmas/ new year ruined many tramping trips and because of this the track was perhaps the driest I have even been on in this part of the country. Once in the shorter scrub somewhere above the 1200m mark the track became much harder to follow with cairns visible but no obvious track connecting them and higher up we just followed our noses until we got onto the more well defined ridge. Once through the scrubby sections it was more of a rock bash along the tops and was fairly straightforward until the scrambly sections before the top. I was first up onto the summit in 3.5 hours Two of us had a quite long lunch on the summit while waiting for the third member of our group, but abandoned the top after we saw that he had decided not to tackle the last rough bit and had turned back. We retraced our steps and caught up with him just past point 1578 and continued back down, with another nice break in the hot sun near the bushline, obtaining the cars about 5pm. An easy moderate trip just to the top and back but a more epic trip could be a loop round the tops southwards and then westwards down the ridge back to the cars.

Very pretty forest.

The Scrubby bit just above the bushline.

Rolleston River.

Things were a bit messy here before getting up to the ridge.

Looking back where we have travelled.

Our destination the far knob.

Looking for the crew nearer the top.

Possible return route along this ridge next time.

Looking back along the route we came up.

Another ridge back down to the confluence of the Otira and Deception Rivers.

looking down into The Deception river.

Here comes one of the crew up the last part to the summit.

Evidence.

Heading back down through that wonderful forest.

The Monks - Black Monk Time (USA/Germany 1966)

Uncle Roddus New CD Of The Week

Another CD that got me all excited when it turned up in the mail earlier this week, a couple of days after The Beauty Room CD(I'm Still Waiting for the last John Zorn CD to turn up). I have raved about this album before on this Blog and now I actually have it on CD, I'm just gonna have to rant again. Five American GI's stationed in West Germany in the 1960s recorded this album in 1965. I still can't believe this slipped under my radar for so long. It has rocketed into my all time top 5 almost instantly. It is another of those unique music statements that defies comparisons and was years ahead of its time. I can't even wait till the end of next week to post this review, I'm just gonna do my rant now then let the music thrill me for the rest of the week. Classified as 60's garage rock by many, but this music, although shot through with some great garage guitar riffs, goes way beyond the limitations of that label. Chocked to the brim with catchy melodies but far from commercial, The songs are quite complex with plenty of great subtle effects under the surface of the songs. The truly awesome "Complications" was the classic Garage Stomper that I was already familiar with and had been a favourite for some time, but the rest of the album equals and almost surpasses the brilliance of that track. Listening to some of the organ solos, I wonder if The Doors were familiar with this record. This  reissue has several additional tracks culled from early singles and a couple of unreleased songs and the awesomeness just continues right through. "That's My Girl" is hilarious and the magnificent "Your Love Came Tumbling  Down" should have taken them to the top of the charts in another universe. I've said it before, I'll say it again, this album is compulsory listening. Rating 5+/5.

Bob Dylan - World Gone Wrong (USA 1993)

Uncle Roddus CD of The Week

Dylan's companion album to the previous years "Good as I Been to You". Both albums are at the more obscure end of the Dylan discography and I had been wanting to check them out for some time before I finally found them in a local record emporium. Like it's predecessor, this is an intimate set of old covers with just Dylan and his guitar. Self produced, stunning sound, excellent playing and all round cool selection of songs. It is a pity he didn't do more of these albums, going back to his folk roots. A similar set to what Johnny Cash did with his first American Recording the same year. I thoroughly enjoy this album and rate it 4.5/5.  

The Beauty Room - The Beauty Room (UK 2006)

Uncle Roddus New CD of the week.

This one arrived in the post ahead of the John Zorn CD I purchased a couple of weeks earlier and is something I got onto for a while when it was released back in 2006 but then slipped off the radar so to speak. My interest was rekindled recently by the release of their second album which I have been enjoying on Spotify. This album is a very laid back and mellow take on some catchy pop tunes which give a big nod to Steely Dan. Such a big nod in fact that the vocalist sounds uncannily like Donald Fagan and Mrs. Roddus even thought it was the Dan. Anyhow that is not a bad thing and these guys make a truly beautiful noise that gently washes over you with a sense of relaxing pleasure. Normally music like this would be far too mellow and tame for my tastes but this set just hit the spot for me. A great record for a nice summers day on the lawn with some friends. Check it out, it won't disappoint. Rating 4/5.

Zipper - Zipper (USA 1975)

Rare MP3 Album Of The Week.

01. Bullets (3:24)

02. Born Yesterday (4:07)

03. The Same Old Song (3:19)

04. Face Of Stone (5:19)

05. Ballbustin' Woman (Re-release only) (3:02)

06. Scars (3:20)

07. Rollin' And Tumblin' (2:44)

08. Worry Kills A Woman (3:45)

09. Let It Freeze (3:38)

10. Behind The Door (3:36)

11. Racing For A Dollar (Unreleased) (2:38)

This one from Rare MP3 is a poorly recorded set of psych/funk/blues with some quite catchy songs and good guitar breaks and could have been a real stomper of a psych record with some more production work and better recording quality, but essentially this sounds like a set of under developed Demos and gets tiresome after the first few listens.Rating 2.5/5  

C. Ptak - Prepare Your Self (USA 2002)

Mutant Sounds Album Of The Week.

1. You're Your Yore (2:54)

2. Rome In Your Bed (3:13)

3. Grow Your Snot (3:02)

4. Your Sorry Now (4:45)

5. Yourgan Again (3:28)

6. Your Fate Denies (4:04)

7. Clouds In Your Eyes (4:39)

8. Prepare Your Self (6:27)

9. Dig Your Style (2:17)

10. Verbose Goes Your Weak (4:30)

11. Your Tough Enough (3:54)

12. Your Snore (3:11)

13. Your A Few (3:15)

Ok, after the weekend of Classic rock down in Queenstown, it's time to get weird again with another obscure recording from the Mutant Sounds Blog and this self recorded/released CDR from Carly Ptak is certainly weird alright. A set of electronic soundscapes and violin noodlings and other samples makes for a industrial tinged collage of silliness that really doesn't do anything for me at all. Very little here in the form of melody or generally accepted coherent song structure but it is interspersed with some interesting sound effects, but overall gets somewhat boring and fails to engage me much at all. Rating 2/5.

Pat Benatar/Bachman-Turner/America - Gibbston Valley Winery - 23rd Febuary 2013

An Uncle Roddus Concert review

I wouldn't have gone to a Pat Benatar concert of my own accord, although I knew her early 80s hits quite well, as many in my social group of the time were big fans and I didn't mind her blend of hard rocking pop songs. Mrs. Roddus, on the other hand is quite into Pat and was keen to go, also a couple of friends were going too and I am always keen on a road trip to that part of the country. America, All I could come up with as to their music was "Horse With No Name" and Bachman & Turner From Bachman Turner Overdrive was the same with their hit"Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" the only thing that came to mind, but both were classic 70s rock bands so would be worth seeing live.

We arrived in Cromwell late Friday night and stayed at the Mother-in-Laws before heading off to Queenstown to have breakfast with Aunty lee-Ann and Uncle Ian. After Breakfast It was off to the venue to get a decent park and position ourselves to good advantage to see the stage and screens. We arrived just past 11am and found a nice spot just to the left of the stage, with a nice big screen in front of us and toilets and food stalls quite nearby. After setting up our deckchairs, slopping on sunscreen, we settled in to watch the first support bands. A couple of bands from the local highschool, the first a dubby reggae type band playing covers of local NZ bands and the second band playing covers from indie rock bands from the early 2000s.
America were first up of the main acts and I was instantly familiar with several of their songs. They played a pretty good set and were more rocky than I expected when I though of "Horse With No Name" which is quite a folksy 70s pop song and wasn't played until their encore. Plenty of foot tappin' classic rock played to an appreciative audience set the scene for an entertaining day. Although it was by this time that I realised that I had left my camera back at my accommodation.
It was during the break between sets that I suddenly remembered that Randy Bachman had originally been in The Guess Who before forming Bachman Turner Overdrive and due to legal reasons couldn't use the BTO name when preforming, so in this context I was hoping for some Guess Who  songs in their set. Man, when these guys kicked of with "Roll On Down The Highway" they were awesome and played so heavy. Of Course I knew several of their songs, all classic rock numbers but I was unprepared for how good they sounded and how good were the songs I didn't know. They blokes could really play and really got the crowd to their feet, especially when the played "Takin' Care of Business" for their encore. I was very very impressed. Oh and they did play the Guess Who's American Woman and "Shakin All Over", The Guess Who's first single from 1965.
Mrs Roddus had disappeared to the front of the stage just before Bachman Turner and Aunty Lee-Ann followed suit for the Pat Benatar set while Uncle Ian and I stayed with our gear. After the brilliant set from Bachman and Turner I knew Pat Benatar was going to be a bit disappointing for me, as I said, I wasn't a huge fan of her music. But the majority of the 15000 strong crowd had come to see her and most were on their feet to see her and Neil play. She is looking good for a woman whose just turned 60 and was full of beans and still belting our the songs with great force throughout the set. The sound was very good and Neil really let rip on his guitar on several of the songs. They played a very good set of mostly the early hits, which the crowd lapped up with much enthusiasm and singing along. I did enjoy the set and am glad I went, it was well worth it and Mrs.Roddus and Aunty Lee-Ann loved every minute. They encored with "Heartbreaker" which is one of her strongest, heaviest  songs and one of my favourites and during a wild guitar frenzy near the end of the song Neil broke into the riff for Led Zeppelins "Heartbreaker" Which really impressed me.
A very entertaining concert and enjoyable weekend.

Gravestone - Creating A Monster (Germany 1987)

Rare MP3 Album Of The Week.

1. Master Of The Earth (4:14)

2. Right To Rock (3:44)

3. You Can't Take It With You (3:33)

4. Creating A Monster (5:45)

5. The End Of Our Love (4:37)

6. Danger (3:09)

7. Dirty City (3:43)

8. Illusions (3:42)

There is almost nothing on this album to make you believe it was created by a German group. This set is pretty much formulaic 80's Heavy Metal and the singer sounds about as German as Sammy Hagar. Fans of Van Halen will probably enjoy this set and although it fails to stamp its own identity on the genre it ain't too bad an album and is a good bit of fun. One I enjoyed more on my initial exposure a couple of years back but hasn't really improved with Familiarity and gets a rating of 2.5/5. 

The Carter Family - The Best Of The Carter Family (UK 2005)

Uncle Roddus CD Of The Week

Quite possibly one of the most influential early artists in music, I brought this set for that reason as they had a big influence on Johnny Cash(he even married into the family) and Bob Dylan to a lessor degree as well as untold other country artists. 

This double disc set covers quite a selection of their most popular songs and a few of their better lesser known numbers, with recordings mostly from the 1930's. That makes for some quite primitive music and over a larger set like this, makes for a slightly difficult listen as the songs all sound quite similar and the old style vocals can be challenging for modern listeners. Also it must be remembered that these songs were recorded to be released in pairs on old 78 records and not on long playing records like we have today.

So separating the songs out and concentrating on them individually  reveals some wonderful guitar melodies played with much skill and with some good vocal melodies if you can get past the melancholic style they sing in. Many of these songs were old folk songs even back when The Carters rerecorded them and there are also some good old style country blues in amongst these songs. Although this is a fairly budget release the recording quality is extremely good for their vintage. Not something I am going to listen to a lot but defiantly a worthwhile addition to my collection, especially in an historical sense.Rating 3/5.

Hiro Yanagida - Nanasai No Rohjin Tengoku (1971 Japan)

Mutant Sounds Album Of The Week

1. The Butcher (2:57)

2. The Murder In The Midnight (8:06)

3. Fantasia (4:56)

4. Good Morning People (3:03)

5. Always (2:43)

6. The Skyscraper 42nd Floor (3:57)

7. My Dear Mary (2:10)

8. Melancholy (4:26)

I initially thought I had a real Japanese Psych Monster on my hands with is rare and obscure set from the keyboardist Hiro Yanagida. The first track hits hard with some incendiary Japanese psyched guitaring and free-form organ from Yanagida  that knocks my socks off. Think Deep Purple on acid. The Monster " The Murder In The Midnight" gives us 8 minutes of the same intensity and I'm going Far out Man. "Fantasia" starts off a bit slower before the guitar psyches out again as only the Japanese can do and I'm in heaven. this is fantastic. Then things start to go astray a bit, the fourth track is quite catchy and funky and still with that psyched guitar, but comes across as a bit of a novelty dittie, something off a TV show perhaps. Yanagida tries to mix things up a bit but fails to pull it off with a pretty awful vocal pop track in "Always". "The Skyscraper.." has quite an infectious little melody happening with some John Cage like piano happening in the background and keeps this album from totally losing the plot, so far. Trying too hard to be eclectic spoils the show somewhat with the terrible 50s Doo-Wop of My Dear Mary", thank god it is the shortest track here. Things appear to pick up a little with the Blood. Sweat and Tears sounding intro to the final track but it turns into a bit of a tuneless dirge with terrible sounding vocals way back in the mix. So a bit of a mixed bag then with the initial few blistering tracks getting us all excited only to be let down by the inconsistencies of the rest of the set. rating 3/5.

Pell Stream Hut - 16-17th February 2013

Uncle Roddus Tramping Diary:Tramp No 132

Pell Stream Hut - 16-17th February 2013

Pell Stream Hut is a fairly remote hut about half way up Pell Stream north of Mt Mueller and the Freyberg Range near Lewis Pass. A friend had suggested a trip into this hut some time back but time and other trips intervened to postpone the trip till now. 

This latest Epic started with Brendan and I departing my car at Marble Hill car park on a warm and pleasant Saturday morning and ambling the 3 km or so up the Mauria  river to try and find the route up to the Mueller tops. Just as we were about to cross the river to start looking for the track entrance, we spotted a cairn on the opposite bank and went to investigate, discovering that this indeed was the start of the track we intended to use to get us up the hill. Without this cairn the track would have been rather difficult to find. The track itself, which is marked on older maps, but not the newer ones, is non maintained and our early experience of tree fall and loosing the track several times within the first few hundred meters started to make it look like it was going to be a difficult trip to the bushline. Things didn't get much better as we got to the creek crossing. The creek had been gutted by the recent floods and was rank with logjams as we struggled to pick up where the track continued on the opposite side. After finally finding the track again things improved markedly as the track climbed steeply  up the ridge. This old track, from here on, was well marked with permolat and the track itself was still well formed and not overgrown. We stopped for elevenses at about 1100M  and made the bushline about 1:30PM and had lunch. We then started along the tops towards Mt Mueller. The going was slightly slower than I anticipated due to the long grasses and small shrubs in places but there is a quite well defined animal trail on the very top of the ridge. We summited  Mt Mueller around 3PM by which time clouds had settled on the tops obliterating our views and resulting in much more concentration with our navigating. The route round to point 1650 involved some rock scrambling, several short climbs and careful consideration as to our position after each point we crossed, skirting round some of the rockier points to save time. This section took us about another 3 hours and it was shortly after 6PM that we started our descent from point 1650 with low visibility, but after careful study of map and taking compass bearing. We gained the exact ridge I had decided to use for our descent, but had we better visibility higher up I would have chosen the next ridge to our west, which did look the better route to us as we struggled down a particularly steep section of dense scrub just before we hit the bushline. Once in the forest things got  much easier as we were in one of those fairly open beech forests with plenty of dead and rotting trees to wrongly grab onto as you plummet downwards. This section looked reasonably short from above the tree-line but seemed to go on forever as we kept heading down and down and down for about 600M until we finally hit the lower section and the creek we intended to follow out to Pell Stream and the Hut we knew to be 100 odd meters down stream from where the creek came out. We were greatly relieved to find the hut right where it should be, proving my navigating to be successful and the hut only slightly above the recent flood level that had chocked this part of Pell stream with logjams. We made the hut at 8:30pm after a 10 and 1/2 hour day. A pleasant warm night was had at the hut, which gets very few visitors each year, as we prepared dinner and snuggled down into unconsciousness around 10:30pm.

Slept in till 8am on a beautiful Sunday morning and left the hut by 9am for the trip down Pell Stream back to Marble Hill. After negotiating the logjams and slips and admiring the level of the recent floods that had wrecked havoc with the area, we found the track that was to take us above the first gorgy part of the river but I thought this was just one  of the flood routes and so we continued heading downstream in the river bed until it got too tricky to continue and I realised my mistake. Not to worry, we would just climb up through the bush until we hit the track. This was easier said than done as it started ok for a while but we ran into some quite thick undergrowth and some windfall that was a pain. While climbing over one particular horizontal tree with lots of other scrubby plants around it, I thought I touched some unseen stinging nettle but couldn't spot it, I warned Brendan, who was by this time climbing over the same tree, when he got attacked by wasps. We high-tailed it out of there as fast as we could considering where we were and managed to escape the nasties. Brendan got hit about 5 times. We eventually found the track, but  not before another short encounter with more wasps, where Brendan got another couple of stings. The track was easy to follow and in good condition and we were soon back in the river bed rock hopping down stream. We reached Gilchrist Stream about 11:45am and decided to have lunch. From there we were suppose to get onto the track that would take us over the last gorgy part of the river and onto the 4WD track which went back to Marble Hill, but amongst the logjam and scrub in the confluence of Gilchrist Stream we could find no track or markers or indicators to point us in the right direction. I was wondering if maybe this wasn't Gilchrist at all but perhaps another of those streams that some times don't appear on the maps, but that did seem unlikely for a quite major stream. We decided to carry on down stream and fortunately we came across a couple of blokes gold panning about halfway between Gilchrist and the next stream. The told us that the track from Gilchrist actually started about 150m upstream in Gilchrist creek but if we followed their route up from their camp we would find the track about 100m above. We followed their route for about 30M before loosing track of it and so continued with our second bush bash of the day. We found the track easy enough and followed this easy track back out to the 4WD track  which got us back to my car about 2:45pm.

The track up the hill.

View of Marble Hill from the bushline

Brendan emerging from the trees

Mt Mueller

And the clouds roll in.

Uncle Roddus on Muellwr

Visability greatly reduced.

Scrambling round the rocks.

looking down into Pell Stream

One very knackered Uncle Roddus at Pelkl Stream hut

Duck.

The river gorging out forcing us to bush bash back onto the track above.

Siamese trees.

Pell Stream.