v/a - Carnage in a Country Garden (1986) C90

Assuming they have no objections, at some point I'm going to be digitising and sharing some of the stuff I have by Opera for Infantry who became better known as the Grey Wolves in more recent years. As some of you may be aware, the Grey Wolves have been subject to a certain degree of criticism for their use of extreme right wing imagery, with some of this criticism suggesting that the Grey Wolves might even be sympathetic towards the politics of those whose flags they once slapped all over their tape covers. The thing is, I've known them on and off by various degrees of separation for about three decades now, and I still have a stack of letters from Trev of the group from when we used to write to each other back in the day, and with this in mind I respectfully suggest that whilst one might legitimately criticise their possibly irresponsible use of scary pictures, the idea that they could be genuine Nazis, closeted or otherwise, is complete bollocks; but it's really an argument for another time. I always viewed Opera for Infantry as more or less Crass with a synth and a fuzz pedal instead of guitars and drums, at least in terms of where their politics lay, and it really isn't hard to find material to support this if you can be arsed to look, not least all of those early compilations on their Anal Probe label, noisy but well-rooted in anarchopunk and squat culture and usually released as a benefit for some worthy cause or another, and no - we really aren't talking about anything comparable to how Death in June used to play at Rock Against Racism events...

Anyway, to get to the point, this was Anal Probe's third, fourth or maybe even fifth compilation cassette, a noisy affair as you might expect, but with a lot of variety too. I've written about Enhoenta Bodlar, Asepisis, and Do Easy - which was me - elsewhere on this blog with downloads which can be found via the index at the foot of this entry, and I wrote about Human Trapped Rhythms here, and as for the rest: Final was the bloke from Godflesh, and I think Chris Low who drummed for the Apostles was in Political Asylum, and you're probably as well-equipped to find out about the others as I am, should you feel you need to know. A few of this bunch turned up on other compilations, but they remain mostly just names to me.

As Do Easy, I played a live gig in support to Opera for Infantry and the Subhumans in Amesbury back in September 1984, so that's when I met Trev and Dap. After the gig we went back to their place - which I vaguely remember as being full of punk rockers - and I happened to have the tape of my tracks for this compilation on me, so Trev made a copy there and then on his ghetto blaster. I noticed the levels were whacked right up on the machine, and my bargain bin Matt Johnson impersonation was transformed into something off the first SPK album as it was being copied, but I was too polite, or possibly terrified, to say anything. Anyway, if anyone cares enough, slightly clearer versions of the Do Easy tracks appeared on one of the Purifier tapes. Of course, that was 1984 and this came out in 1986 according to Discogs, which leaves a bit of an odd gap, so either my memory is wrong or some Discogs subscriber has messed up on the dating.

Anyway, four-hundred years later, this doesn't sound anything like so noisy as I remember it being, and it's also nice that it's not just twenty-seven tracks of different blokes screaming that they're going to do you up the bum; yes, quite a pleasing collection, I'd say.

Download these twenty-seven tracks, cover and inserts by clicking on this link.

Tracks:
1 - Enhoenta Bodlar - Antichrist ne Telleth
2 - Der Verboten - Walking
3 - Vox Populi! - White Man in Africa
4 - Human Trapped Rhythms - Part of the Same
5 - Final - Belief
6 - Political Asylum - Symptom
7 - Asepisis - The Presence
8 - En Halvkokt I Folie - Men Pensionarer
9 - Kosa - Watt Tem
10 - Do Easy - In the Moral Hit Parade
11 - Nun - Vermilion Sands (extract)
12 - Kallous Boys - Sovereign
13 - Opera for Infantry - Hate Machine
14 - Der Verboten - Your Cancer My Sort
15 - Kosa - No Trouble
16 - En Halvkokt I Folie - Invitation to the Blues
17 - Vox Populi! - Mind
18 - Political Asylum - A Day in the Life
19 - Kallous Boys - Tolerance
20 - Do Easy - Mussolini and a Plate of Gruts
21 - Der Verboten - Slem Jem
22 - Kosa - Pole Sud
23 - Nun - The Disaster Area (extract)
24 - Vaccine Damaged Children - Last Train to Auschwitz
25 - En Halvkokt I Folie - Senator Bizarre
26 - Human Trapped Rhythms - Suck Mud
27 - Kallous Boys - Elizabeth

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