Neil, Richard, Simon, Stewart - Durian Durian (1992) C46

The cover, although informative, isn't visually arresting so the above is a picture of all four persons involved superimposed over one another, somehow amounting to Stewart Walden and a few blurry wisps, which represents the music only poorly but at least gives you something to look at.

The four persons were Neil Campbell, Richard Youngs, Simon Wickham-Smith, and Stewart Walden. Neil Campbell you may remember from ESP Kinetic, SWANC (with Stewart Walden), Vibracathedral Orchestra and others, the first two of which are represented by adjacent material right here, if you would be so good to have a look in the index as linked at the foot of this page. Richard Youngs was something to do with Omming for Woks, whom I remember from somewhere or other, and all of them have been in the A Band at one point or another.

Durian Durian seems to result from all four of them recording sounds entirely independent of each other, with the whole lot then mixed together - simultaneous playback, so I gather - resulting in this tape. Anything involving Neil Campbell is usually worth a listen, and this one is no exception.

Download the tapir by clicking on this link.

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Psychic Rally (1992) 2C60

 

Nothing to do with the Porridge but, as Discogs describes it, a monthly radio show, which broadcasted more than 60 times between 1989 and 1995 on the alternative non-profit station Radio LoRa in Zurich, Switzerland. Hosted by Joke Lanz and Rudolf Eb.er, Psychic Rally developed new forms of radio techniques, cut-ups, sound recycling and sound manipulation. A flyer sent out in 1992 described it as using 'audio material from all over the world (harsh-noise, weird-and environmental sounds) to create a unique collage to blow the listeners mind to bits,' which seems fair, and here's two hours of it as issued by Statutory Tapes, the joke of which I've only just got now that I've typed it out. Tsk. Tsk.

It's spiritually similar to the RRRadio broadcasts by Due Process in the US, as shared here over previous weeks, and Due Process (or some representative thereof) make a fairly amusing appearance here towards the end of the first tape (which is probably the second tape if the Discogs page is accurate, but never mind). I personally prefer the aforementioned RRRadio which seems to do more in a shorter span of time, but this is certainly worth a listen.

While we're here, Rudolf Eb.er contributes one side to Maledicti, a split album with Awkward Geisha recently issued by Love Earth Music and available as a genuinely gorgeous slab of proper vinyl just like mom used to make from this website. It's probably the greatest thing I've heard by either of them and is massively recommended, so grab a copy while you can.

 

Download the stuff described above by clicking on this link.

 

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Due Process - RRRadio 35 (1989) C60

 

 

Here's some more from Due Process, specifically another hours worth of RRRadio from 1989. If you've been following this blog for the last few weeks, you'll doubtless be familiar with the premise of RRRadio which was a broadcast, often collaborative effort utilising contributions from people who make funny noises across the globe; so Switzerland's Runzelstirn & Gurgelstøck are on here somewhere, possibly amongst others. Some of it appears to comprise a recording of someone listening to the hits on AM radio whilst providing an intermittent commentary, but much like Forrest Gump's proverbial box of choccies, you never know what you're going to get with RRRadio, and there seems to be a point to even the boring bits, not least the emphasis on the stranger interludes. I'm sort of surprised no-one has yet done a fancy box of this stuff. I've heard a lot of noise over the years, and Due Process seemed to have something fairly unique, even if it's not always easy to pinpoint quite what it is.

 

Download the tapir and associated artwork by clicking on this link.

 

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TAC - Silence, Exile and Cunning (1990) C60

More weirdy noises this week as Tom Cox does strange things to a tape recorder for an hour or so, with powerfully absorbing results. Again, this wasn't one of my tapes so I'm as much in the dark about the artist as you possibly may be. I had a TAC CD at one point, or at least a collaborative CD he'd done with Rudolf Eb.er and possibly Evil Moisture, but I can't find it right now, and there probably wasn't even any point in my mentioning it. Never mind.

Also included with the download are scans of the booklet which came with the tape. There's a track list of sorts in the booklet but I couldn't make any sense of either it or the one given on Discogs so I've just identified these tracks with individual numbers (Roman numerals because it's classy!).

 

Download the twelve tracks and booklet by clicking on this link.

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AMK - Selected Montage Performances 1989 (1989) C60

 

Here's another one about which I don't know a whole lot, beyond it being the work of one Anthony Michael King, hence the name, formerly associated with Big City Orchestra and White Hand both of whom I remember from when I were a lad listening to Opera For Infantry on eight track whilst riding my chopper around the village green, much to the disapproval of John Craven. There seemed to be quite a bit of this sort of thing around at the time, as the eighties rolled over into the nineties, with the loops and the weird edits and the tape-fuckaboutery; but as you will hear from this set, AMK was one of the people who really nailed it (rather than just churning a million of these things out every month and expecting the rest of us to support it, not mentioning no names or nuffink), and this example is both weird and strangely beautiful.

I already tried to contact AMK to ask if it would be okay to share a different tape but heard nothing back. As it turns out, I wasn't actually able to open the files for that other tape, so never mind, but should he be reading and experiencing reservations about my giving this stuff away for free - please just let me know and I'll pull the plug, okay?

In the meantime, everybody else please feel free to support the artist directly by visiting his Bandcamp page here.

Download the six tracks and artwork by clicking on this link.

Tracks: 

1 - Montage Performances
2 - Touch
3 - Late
4 - Travels
5 - Hesitation
6 - Triana

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