Last week I posted Opera for Infantry material from a tape I'd made up myself, copied from things which Trev Ward had sent me over the years. The last track on the tape was a massive slab of noise identified only as being by Irritant, a name Trev briefly used for his solo recordings. I had a hunch I'd probably just copied it straight from Tomorrow We Live for the sake of filling up a tape, so I went to check, then decided I may as well just go ahead and digitise the thing seeing as I was planning to get around to it eventually; meaning that April is Grey Wolves Month here at Ferric Archaeology Towers.
In between the end of Opera for Infantry and the beginning of the Grey Wolves, Trev recorded solo as both Irritant and Nails ov Christ, although I can never remember which secret identity came first. Anyway, this one was a split tape with Ramleh. The Ramleh side seems to be from some live performance, although I have no clue as to where or when, and the booklet doesn't give anything away. It also seems to share a roughly similar track list to a few of their early Broken Flag tapes - from what I can see on Discogs - which I never actually heard, so I don't know how well it stands up in the wider context of their oeuvre. Ramleh's Blowhole is one of my favourite records, but is almost the work of a different band, and their tracks on Broken Flag's Statement album are pretty solid, but I guess you probably have to be a bigger fan of Ramleh than I ever was to get something from this live set. I mean, it's okay, just sounds like a lot of other things. Titles appear where it seemed like a new track had begun to my ears, because otherwise it's just twenty minutes of more or less continuous noise. I know I could have left it as a single track whilst editing the sound file and no-one would have given a shit, but it felt as though it would be wrong to just leave it, because I'm a pedant.
Same with the Irritant side of the tape - the noise changes about eighteen minutes in so I've assumed that's where Assault System starts. I have to say, this Irritant material is probably one of the most powerful slabs of noise I think I've heard, and I vaguely recall thinking it was about the best thing Trev had ever done at the time.
I wasn't going to bother scanning the booklet because I'm sure you've all seen pictures of bad guys before, but what the fuck - here it is scanned and included with the download for the sake of being thorough. Enjoy.
I seem to recall the tape came loose in a sort of envelope made of an A4 photocopy folded over and stapled closed, which annoyed me because I LIKE EVERYTHING TO BE NICE, so I made my own cover (using photocopies of the envelope version) for the sake of sticking it in a case and neatly filing it away with my other tapes, like nature intended; so I've scanned my version of the cover. I don't have the envelope version. It's probably worth about a million quid now too.
Finally, in case it still requires an explanation, you will notice that the artwork of this tape features a heapin' helpin' of Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists, whom older readers of the Daily Mail may remember with some affection. My feeling, based on years of personal correspondence with Trev and the fact that I'm an adult, is that the presentation of Tomorrow We Live was intended to provoke an extreme and unpleasant reaction, rather than being as it is because, as some have suggested, Trev thought Oswald Mosley was probably a right nice bloke. The intention of most of Trev's work, as it seems to me, has been to provoke horror of such strength as to inspire change within society, so it's simply not the case that he's ever presented a vision of society he would like you to support. He's trying to scare you into pushing back. I personally think he may have misjudged the effect of what he was doing on a couple of occasions, but the Grey Wolves were never the musical wing of the far right, regardless of how it may have seemed from a cursory glance. Were it otherwise, I wouldn't be sharing this thing, mkay?
In between the end of Opera for Infantry and the beginning of the Grey Wolves, Trev recorded solo as both Irritant and Nails ov Christ, although I can never remember which secret identity came first. Anyway, this one was a split tape with Ramleh. The Ramleh side seems to be from some live performance, although I have no clue as to where or when, and the booklet doesn't give anything away. It also seems to share a roughly similar track list to a few of their early Broken Flag tapes - from what I can see on Discogs - which I never actually heard, so I don't know how well it stands up in the wider context of their oeuvre. Ramleh's Blowhole is one of my favourite records, but is almost the work of a different band, and their tracks on Broken Flag's Statement album are pretty solid, but I guess you probably have to be a bigger fan of Ramleh than I ever was to get something from this live set. I mean, it's okay, just sounds like a lot of other things. Titles appear where it seemed like a new track had begun to my ears, because otherwise it's just twenty minutes of more or less continuous noise. I know I could have left it as a single track whilst editing the sound file and no-one would have given a shit, but it felt as though it would be wrong to just leave it, because I'm a pedant.
Same with the Irritant side of the tape - the noise changes about eighteen minutes in so I've assumed that's where Assault System starts. I have to say, this Irritant material is probably one of the most powerful slabs of noise I think I've heard, and I vaguely recall thinking it was about the best thing Trev had ever done at the time.
I wasn't going to bother scanning the booklet because I'm sure you've all seen pictures of bad guys before, but what the fuck - here it is scanned and included with the download for the sake of being thorough. Enjoy.
I seem to recall the tape came loose in a sort of envelope made of an A4 photocopy folded over and stapled closed, which annoyed me because I LIKE EVERYTHING TO BE NICE, so I made my own cover (using photocopies of the envelope version) for the sake of sticking it in a case and neatly filing it away with my other tapes, like nature intended; so I've scanned my version of the cover. I don't have the envelope version. It's probably worth about a million quid now too.
Finally, in case it still requires an explanation, you will notice that the artwork of this tape features a heapin' helpin' of Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists, whom older readers of the Daily Mail may remember with some affection. My feeling, based on years of personal correspondence with Trev and the fact that I'm an adult, is that the presentation of Tomorrow We Live was intended to provoke an extreme and unpleasant reaction, rather than being as it is because, as some have suggested, Trev thought Oswald Mosley was probably a right nice bloke. The intention of most of Trev's work, as it seems to me, has been to provoke horror of such strength as to inspire change within society, so it's simply not the case that he's ever presented a vision of society he would like you to support. He's trying to scare you into pushing back. I personally think he may have misjudged the effect of what he was doing on a couple of occasions, but the Grey Wolves were never the musical wing of the far right, regardless of how it may have seemed from a cursory glance. Were it otherwise, I wouldn't be sharing this thing, mkay?
Smiley face. Smiley face.
Tracks:
1 - Irritant - British Blood
2 - Irritant - Assault System
3 - Ramleh - Throatsuck
4 - Ramleh - A Return to Slavery
5 - Ramleh - Nordhausen
6 - Ramleh - New Force
7 - Ramleh - Phenol
8 - Ramleh - Koprolagnia
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