This, as the title suggests, was Nocturnal Emissions live at the Garage in London back at the tail end of the last century, an event either put on by or serving as a recruitment drive for the Association of Autonomous Astronauts. I've seen them - or if you prefer him - live on a couple of occasions since, and this was probably the lesser of the gigs I attended, but it was the one I attended with a tape recorder stuffed into my trusty green canvas bag, so here we are. When asking Nigel for permission to give away his work for free, I described this tape by saying I'm certain we've both heard worse which probably explains why I never really made it in marketing. It's not terrible, but the PA was far too quiet on the night and I was stood at the back, so you can hear a lot of background chatter on the recording. In fact the recording sort of suggests Nigel tinkling away on the piano in the corner of a restaurant full of yappy fuckers. Anyway, I mentioned that the tape also captures ten minutes worth of my travelling home on the tube after leaving the venue, which sort of makes it a field recording - as Nigel also suggested - which might be a better way of looking at it.
The material is great, and the sound quality is actually decent - allowing the listener to fully appreciate John Eden and myself arguing over which of us owns the rarest Maurizio Bianchi bootleg album even during the noisier sonic assaults* - and it's a faithful record of the live event, if not the music performed, if you see what I mean. Superior versions of a couple of these tracks (albeit not from this gig) also appeared on the definitive Nocturnal Emissions live album Electropunk Karaoke, if you can find a copy. If you can't, you might try the Earthly Delights site. Maybe he'll reissue it at some point.
The material is great, and the sound quality is actually decent - allowing the listener to fully appreciate John Eden and myself arguing over which of us owns the rarest Maurizio Bianchi bootleg album even during the noisier sonic assaults* - and it's a faithful record of the live event, if not the music performed, if you see what I mean. Superior versions of a couple of these tracks (albeit not from this gig) also appeared on the definitive Nocturnal Emissions live album Electropunk Karaoke, if you can find a copy. If you can't, you might try the Earthly Delights site. Maybe he'll reissue it at some point.
Tracks:
1 - (launch sequence)
2 - Tharmuncrape an'goo
3 - One Nation the ImagiNation - One Race the Space Race
4 - Bring Power to its Knees
5 - Do It '99
6 - Venus in Furs
7 - No Sacrifice
8 - Imaginary Time
9 - Going Under
10 - No Separation
11 - Levity's Rainbow
12 - (re-entry sequence)
Return to Index
*: John won as proud owner of Schrecklich Tropft aus dem Hahn des Führers which is just the sound of a tap dripping with the dialogue from an episode of the BBC's Colditz in the background. A copy was recently sold for four thousand quid on Discogs.
Thanks v much!
ReplyDelete