Monday 15 May 2017

The Anarchist Angels - As the Innocent Suffer... (1983) C30+


I first heard the Anarchist Angels on the Anal Probe compilation tape, Political Piggies. They immediately stood out, and with hindsight I'd say because they resembled a slightly low-fi version of how one of those bands on the Crass label might have sounded if they'd been listening to nothing but Wire. I realise that no two bands on the Crass label actually sounded particularly alike, but I'm generalising. Anyway, I immediately wrote off for a tape and got this, and played it to death. I gather the Anarchist Angels were two, maybe three people with a drum machine - Steve whom I wrote to at his home address in Sunbury-on-Thames, Gail who is mentioned on the cover, and I guess maybe someone else. I also gather they became the Anarchist Angels at some point, having simply been the Angels when they recorded As the Innocent Suffer... They seemed to be the Anarchist Angels on compilation tapes and in fanzines, so that's the name I'm sticking with.

When compiling the Moraals tape for my own Do Easy label, I asked Steve if he wanted to be on it and he sent me another copy of As the Innocent Suffer... with five new tracks recorded on the second side - being a C30, copies were sent out on one side of a C60 - so that's what you have here.

Weirdly I ran into Steve yet again more recently, around 2010 I think. He was selling stuff on eBay and I think I may have bought some old Adam & the Ants material from him - going by my remembering him having been quite a fan of that early, more expressionist incarnation of the Ants. Amazingly he remembered me, because he's clearly a nice guy, and mumbled something about not being too sure about his old band. It seems like there's a reasonable chance he might end up reading this seeing as he's probably still out there somewhere; so Steve, if you are, you're wrong - this was some fucking great music and you should be proud!


Tracks:
1 - I Cry with Despair
2 - You've Created Something You Can't Control
3 - Prepare to Die
4 - Sub-System
5 - Plastic People
6 - I Give, You Take
7 - Flowers in Full Bloom
8 - Man Does Not Create, Man Destroys
9 - Squat for Peace, Squat for Freedom, Squat to Preserve Your Life
10 - Force His Mind
11 - One in a Million
12 - No Freedom
13 - Sick But a Shepherd
14 - Don't Care


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