Unkommuniti - Brutality of Fact (1984) 7"

I wasn't going to bother but I already had the gramophone plugged in so as to digitise the Larry Peterson 7", plus I've otherwise digitised nearly everything I can be bothered to digitise, plus there's probably about three of you who either don't have this or still haven't heard it. I'm sure these tracks turn up on that boxed set thing, so consider this free advertising for the same or summink.

The Unkommuniti were what Tim Gane (and others) did before Stereolab, back when we were mates and we all used to go around in a big gang dreaming of fame and fortune, so he'll always be Timbo to me. That was back when you thought the Alarm were the dog's bollocks. Remember that? Thought not.

Technically speaking, the Unkommuniti were actually what Tim Gane (and others) did before McCarthy, except I've never actually heard McCarthy so tend to forget they existed. I also have a couple of the Unkommuniti tapes but I'm keeping those to myself so as to avoid getting told off, plus I'm sure you can find them out there somewhere if you look hard enough.

The Unkommuniti were early Nocturnal Emissions with a Lovecraft obsession, if that helps, although krautrock traces can be heard even in this early stuff.

Enjoy!

Download it yonder.

Tracks:
1 - Brutality of Fact
2 - Wall of Sleep
3 - The Price of Your Entry is Sin

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Stuff The Neighbours Play It Loud (1984) 7"

It's not a tape, but same difference. Larry put this out towards the end of Cause for Concern, it being his swansong excepting a couple of reissues as vinyl albums. It came in an A4 plastic bag with a stack of loose sheets of photocopied artwork from the artists, so I've scanned that and it's all included here. I could have spent hours getting rid of the occasional pop or click but I couldn't be arsed, and you're getting the fucker for free anyway. You edit the sound files if you care that much. Or maybe your mom could edit them.

Band of Holy Joy shouldn't really require much of an introduction, and nor should We Be Echo (and for what it's worth I suspect Kevin probably designed the cover or at least the front page, as seen above). The Unkommuniti eventually turned into Stereolab, as you know. I don't know nuffink about the other three bands, and Larry never mentioned them in any of his letters, and nor did they appear on any other CFC tapes from what I can tell. My guess is that at least one of them made it onto the EP by virtue of stumping up some money for pressing as they don't quite sound like Larry's usual fare. That said, there's nothing wrong with them either, and the Nightmare track is pretty great. The other two sound like the Police and Hawkwind respectively, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

I used to have about thirty copies of this thing but, having failed to shift any through the mail - having added them to the Runciter Corporation catalogue - I ended up giving them all away to Martin Pike of Stereolab and Duophonic, explaining 'Tim used to be in one of these bands so I figured you could give them away to Stereolab fans or something.' I was able to do this because, by fucking stupid coincidence, I was not only his regular postman at the time, but we lived in the same street - he was about ten doors down the hill from me. I got the impression he thought I was a bit weird, so I don't know what he did with the records, but I sort of wish I'd hung onto them and flogged them on eBay. Never mind.

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

Tracks:
1 - Band of Holy Joy - Snow White
2 - We Be Echo - Housewive's Choice
3 - Some Other Year - Nice and Safe
4 - Psy - Sickle and the Hourglass
5 - Nightmare - Mask (of Normality)
6 - Unkommuniti - Yog Sothoth
 
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Clench - In the Garden (1984) C46

I'm afraid I don't have much of a clue about this one, and even the year of its appearance is guesswork based on where the catalogue number should appear amongst other Black Dwarf releases listed on Discogs, which this one isn't, for some reason. Black Dwarf was the label run by Tim Gane of the Unkommuniti (and yes - Stereolab blah blah blah), so I have a vague hunch this may have been a couple of other Unkommuniti peeps branching out so as to experience the novelty of recording an entire cassette without H.P. Lovecraft references; but it's a hunch, so I'm not sure. It could be Jonathan King for all I know. I vaguely recall being sent this copy by some Clench person, asking if I would consider releasing it on Do Easy, which confused me because it sort of looked like it was already available through Black Dwarf what with the cover and everything. Maybe that was just some provisional thing and it never received formal release, hence the absence from Discogs. Maybe they just wanted it to appear on a few labels. Anyway, I thought the tape was great but Do Easy had more or less bitten the dust by that point, as I recall. There's a chance I still have the letter from the guy somewhere in one of the six lever arch box files in which I have kept all of my antique correspondence from Cosey Fanni Tutti, Neil Campbell, the Grey Wolves, and other famous people, but it could take a couple of days to find even if I still have the thing, so - well, y'know...

In the Garden stands out as one of the stranger, more interesting weirdy cassettes I've heard over the years - drum machines deployed as sonic effects rather than for the sake of rhythm in the traditional sense, and those weird, dark titles - more like lines of poetry than a list of tracks. Maybe if Michael Gira had been hanging around with Portion Control rather than New York art gallery wankers...

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

Tracks:
1 - Child - Man, a Summer's Day
2 - One Result of Courage
3 - He Was Pushed
4 - Don't Touch... Mine!
5 - Grab Me
6 - Insanity Begins (at Home)
7 - Kata'ib
8 - Why Choose Her, That Poor Little Girl?
9 - Lenny
10 - Instinctuality
11 - Indoctrination Starts Young
12 - Only an Attack Can Do These Things

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v/a - Ars Magna et Ultima (1984) C60

Here we go - the Black Dwarf label compilation Ultimate Arse Magnets by popular request. Black Dwarf, as you probably know, was the H.P. Lovecraft-fixated home of the Unkommuniti and therefore the work of Tim Gane, more recently and better known for McCarthy and Stereolab. A few of those featured here should be familiar to you if you've been following this blog, and shouldn't need much of an introduction, but just for the sake of argument: Trilogy were here just last week, and still known as the Complete Trilogy when this tape went out. These tracks were taken from Tapestry, although Our Patience Will End / Clean Recording is actually a single track made from the two originals edited together, presumably by Tim; the Cause for Concern piece seems to be yet another offering culled from that same afternoon when Larry got to play with a ring modulator around his mate's house; I know nothing about Ashenden except that I really wish I'd got hold of the bloke's tape back then - I have a couple of the fanzines he produced and he was clearly an interesting guy; Opera for Infantry eventually became the Grey Wolves; Smear Campaign - tellingly named after the Nocturnal Emissions hit single - eventually became Godflesh, or at least one of them did; and Mass of Black were a Bolton based punk band who released a few things through Bluurg Tapes as run by Dick of the Subhumans. As for the Kallous Boys, Last Breath, VVH, Spinebender and Assailer, they all seem so closely associated with Black Dwarf as to make me wonder whether they might not simply be Unkommuniti solo-projects given how the Unkommuniti were more than just Tim, from what I gather.

I had to take a slightly different approach to editing the digitised file of this tape, given Tim's propensity for punctuating the track listing with bits of what sounds like Edgar Allen Poe, not to mention his tendency to segue certain tracks into one another leaving it ambiguous as to where Smear Campaign end and Crusade begins, for one example. I've inserted my standard two second gaps where appropriate, but otherwise tried to preserve the flow of the cassette, as was. I've rendered Larry Peterson's amazing contribution in proper mono, as opposed to stereo but only playing in one channel - as appears on the original tape for no good reason I can think of aside from that something probably got unplugged by accident and Tim was too busy reading At the Mountains of Madness to notice. Also included in this download are a couple of Black Dwarf catalogues from the time, plus some sort of manifesto.

More Black Dwarf chortles next week, readers...

Download these sixteen tracks, cover and Black Dwarf catalogues with this link.

Tracks:
1 - Yogge Sothotha
2 - Kallous Boys - Tranquilise
3 - Trilogy - Our Patience Will End / Clean Recording
4 - The Cause for Concern - Hey Juden
5 - Unkommuniti - Pit
6 - Last Breath - Down in the Drains
7 - VVH - Blackfire
8 - Spinebender - Step on Your Backbone
9 - Assailer - I Did It Mi-go
10 - Trilogy - The Dark Night
11 - Ashenden - Jesus Ipsation
12 - The Cause for Concern - Last Doomsday Reprisal
13 - Opera for Infantry - Self-Discipline Not Self-Oppression
14 - Smear Campaign - Processor
15 - Unkommuniti - Crusade
16 - Mass of Black - I Feel

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