Download CJ- Single Minded
Listen to CJ + Single Minded 1
Strange release (but in a good, low fi dubbed out sort of way) on Unskilled Labor, originally via Thunder Gongz.
Insane Music
Dec 12, ’07
11:59 PM
As anyone reading A Million Keys for the past few months can gauge, I’m increasingly fixated on early industrial, minimal synth, and new wave cassette labels. I recently discovered Belgian ’80s cassette label Insane Music and I’m quite impressed. I came across it while researching the group Bene Gesserit, whose track “Kidnapping” on Roger Aristotle’s compilation series The Anesthetic’s Wearing Off blew me away.
Listen to BENE GESSERIT + Kidnapping
Alain Neffe, of Bene Gesserit (as well as Human Flesh, M.A.L., and Pseudo Code), started Insane Music in the early 1980s, primarily to release recordings of his own projects. He also produced two prolific decade-long compilation series Insane Music for Insane People (24 volumes) and Home Made Music for Home Made People (8 volumes). Both are incredible representations of the enormous European output produced in the early to mid ’80s within and between those scenes. A few recognizable names include: The Legendary Pink Dots, Portion Control, Colin Potter, DDAA, Mark Lane, and Front Line Assembly. However, these compilations are distinct in their stunning assortment of seemingly hundreds of unknown groups.
Listen to Die Bleichgeischter + Old shatter hand (Extract)
Listen to Human Flesh + Angel With Fragile Face
Listen to Individual + Piece C
Listen to Pseudo Code + Watoo-Watoo
Listen to Berntholer + Toys
(I wish I had all the compilations available, but in fact, I only have a small handful. I was unfortunately unable to find a resource for the full series.)
AAB (Ancient Art of Boar)- Bright Dole
Jul 16, ’07
9:01 AM
I’ve been raving about this cassette for almost a decade now. It’s Andrew WK’s solo project from high school. To me it sounds like Prince on downers with a good dose of harsh noise. Pretty much incredible. I heard he released one or two other cassettes as AAB- and I haven’t heard them yet. I promise to bake a cake for anyone who shares them with me.
Unfortunately the original is in a box in my dad’s basement in California right now, so I was unable to scan the artwork. I digitized it a few years ago for an old roommate- and this is the copy I present to you now. Enjoy!
Download AAB.zip
For the completists:
Early ‘80s Colin Potter
Jul 12, ’07
7:48 AM
Colin Potter ’s early recordings have been rocking my world recently. Potter has released material over the past 20 years or so but he also made his name operating the studio and label Integrated Circuit which produced bands such as Nurse With Wound, Current 93, Organum, Jonathan Coleclough, Ora, and others.
His early stuff oscillates between the strange and atmospheric:
Listen to Colin Potter + Hills
To pop, if you want to call it that:
Listen to Colin Potter + Behind You
Vinyl On Demand (who put out the Broken Flag box set I mentioned earlier) did a reissue last year of his early cassette releases which you can see here
You can also download his second cassette the Ghost Office from 1980 below:
Download The Ghost Office (cassette).zip
TAPES ‘N TAPES ‘N TAPES
May 12, ’07
10:52 AM
In honor of the Leaderless: Underground Cassette Culture Now show which opens today at Printed Matter, I’d thought I’d wax a little bit about this increasingly obscured medium. Apparently I am not the only one- as cassette nostalgia seems to be everywhere these days.
For the Leaderless exhibition, Printed Matter transformed their backroom into a cassette shop, and will sell tapes from a bunch of different labels, including: 23 Productions (WI), AA (MI), American Tapes (MI), Animal Disguise (MI), Bone Tooth Horn, Callow God (CA), Cherried Out Merch (OR), Chondritic Sound (MI), Drone Disco (OH), Ecstatic Peace (MA), Fag Tapes (MI), Fuckit Tapes (NY), Gods of Tundra (MI), Hanson Records (MI), Heavy Tapes (NY), Hospital Productions (NY), Iatrogenesis (OR), Ides (IL), Friendship Bracelet (MA), Loveless Tapes (NJ), Middle James CO (ON/CA), Monorail Trespassing (CA), Nihilist Productions (IL), Not Not Fun (CA), Psychform (WA), RRRecords (MA), Rundownsun (BC), Since 1972 (NY), Spite (NY), Stammer Tapes (NY), Swampland Noise (CA), Throne Heap (NY), Tone Filth (MN), Trash Ritual (NY), and Troniks (CA), among many others. The show is curated by Dominick Fernow (Hospital Productions), Chris Freeman (Fusetron), Ken Montgomery (Generator), Barbara Moore (Bound/Unbound), and Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth/Ecstatic Peace).
I also noticed that William Berger- who started the Lo-Fi Show on WFMU in the late 80s showcasing cassette-only releases- began digitizing his collection and posting them on the WFMU blog (Unfortunately, the files are in rar. Bummer.)
Through Berger’s post on WFMU, I discovered the Club Moral Stocklist blog/podcast. Club Moral was a noise group formed in 1981 by Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven and Danny Devos in Antwerp. It was also the name of a performance space from 1981 to 1983. Each podcast provides a digitized version of a cassette release by a performer or an artist associated with the band or the space, and the blog lists tracks and photos of the release.
Essentially an archive of underground cassette culture in the early 1980s, the Club Moral site is nothing short of amazing. One of the cassettes presented on the site, a compilation called White Power includes recordings by a number of artists who come under the power electronics header, such as Consumer Electronics, Maurizio Bianchi, Ramleh, etc. (Despite the name and the swastika on the front cover, its producers were pretty clear that it was for shock effect only.) These artists also released recordings (primarily cassettes) on the UK-based label Broken Flag, whose releases from 1982-1985 are now readily available for the first time ever as an LP box set from Vinyl-On-Demand.
Dominick Fernow, who runs Hospital Productions and co-curated the Leaderless show, is responsible for bringing the Broken Flag box set to my attention. (He brought it in to EVR the other week when he guest DJed, with the intention of exclusively playing tracks off its 5+ hours for the entire duration of my two hours slot. Cool but yikes!) As the story goes, Gary Mundy was inspired to found the label Broken Flag and his band Ramleh after viewing Whitehouse’s first Live Aktion at the Whisky-A-Go-Go in the early 1980s. His label emerged as one of the premier labels of the early power electronics scene, a particular strain of post punk that veered sternly opposite of its more pop influenced contemporaries. The liner notes provide a full discography with tracklistings and, overall, the set is an unparalled document of the scene and the label. Includes ear scorchers by: Sutcliffe Jugend, Consumer Electronics, Un-Kommuniti, Maurizio Bianchi, Controlled Bleeding, Ramleh, Male Rape Group, Kleistwahr, TOLL, New Blockaders, Mauthausen Orchestra, Falx Cerebri, Giancarlo Toniutti and many more. Click below for an excerpt:
Listen to Maurizio Bianchi + S.F.A.G. (Extract)
