Envy - 1987 Demo (1987) C20

I'm quite excited about this one as I thought it was beyond hope, having already tried and failed to digitise the thing as I explained here. But, having recently discovered that the other player on my double cassette deck can just about cope with tapes which have otherwise succumbed to wow and flutter, here we are. It still sounds a little wobbly in places, but I'd say it's listenable, and at least it no longer sounds like Bourbonese Qualk outtakes. There's a programme called Capstan, I think, which one can download and use to eliminate wow and flutter, but I don't have it. If anyone wants to send me a couple of hundred dollars so I can buy the thing, that would be great.

 

I've had my tape deck repaired and a new motor installed since writing the above and it turns out the Envy tape now plays fine, so I've redigitised it and replaced the drunk versions with what you should have heard first time - link same as before.

 

Anyway, this was, on reflection, possibly my favourite line-up of this band (including the one which had me as a member) and these are fucking great songs, at least providing you like that sort of thing, which I did, or still do in the case of this tape. I've a feeling Paul was pulling towards being the Swans of Chatham (hence being named after one of the seven deadly sins, just like Greed) while Rajun and Prez were pulling in what was almost the opposite direction, which is why it worked so well, in my opinion. Someone should track down the master of this and stick it out as a 12" - fucking brilliant stuff.

Download the quintet of ditties and associate visual component by clicking on this link.

Tracks:
1 - A Suicide
2 - Killing Man
3 - Prove Yourself
4 - Fear of the Dark
5 - Just For You


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Real Time 6 (1983) C90

So here's the last volume of Real Time which I haven't already posted, and you'll find the others by looking in the index as linked at the foot of this post. This volume takes the opposite route to the one I posted last week (at least I think it was the one I posted last week) by showcasing a lot of short, snappy stuff, so I assume Robert was following certain themes when he compiled each volume - and whilst I remember, a preposterously belated thanks to Mr. Cox: only since digitising, editing, and sharing these have I realised that all seven volumes appeared within the space of less than a single year, which must have been one hell of a lot of work.

Having been busy this week, I haven't had so much time in which to listen to this one, so have failed to form the usual opinions regarding content, but stand outs seem to be (at least for me) Born BC, A Primary Industry, and Trekellion Skyway. By the way, on the subject of Trekellion Skyway, Black Brook, as listed on the cover, was actually on volume five, so I assume Robert may have been getting a bit overworked by this point (and it's actually probably my single favourite track from the entire Real Time series, for whatever that may be worth).

Don't really know nuffink about none of these, although a few of them had material on previous volumes, and Brian Aspro was apparently a member of idid idid who were on Real Time 4 and about whom I'm sure I had something or other to say; Asylum Penguins are actually Robert I. Gillham who was on a couple of Cause for Concern compilations (again see index); I've added an additional exclamation mark to the name of Look! Mother! because it seemed wrong without one; I assumed Born BC were famous because I've heard of them, but apparently not, so I probably just happened to read the single fanzine they were in or something; A Primary Industry (pictured above) were definitely sort of famous and were on some Third Mind compilation album at some point. I seem to remember Peel playing them a lot but I could be mistaken; everyone knows who Bourbonese Qualk are; and I still don't know a chuffing thing about Trekellion Skyway, which is annoying as the geezer was clearly a talent.

Why would anyone call their band Rags Woggle?

Download the thirty-two tracks and cover by licking on this clink.

Tracks:
1 - Carol E - You Don't Have to Pull That Face
2 - The Genitals - The Wild West
3 - The Genitals - Sweet as Feathers
4 - Orgy Del'Orange - Gypsy Moth IV
5 - Look! Mother! - Sound Off
6 - Look! Mother! - Two Persons
7 - Born BC - What Glory
8 - Born BC - Proud Father
9 - The Meek - Smokeless Zone
10 - The Meek - Space Transition
11 - Vista - Closed In
12 - A Primary Industry - Under Western Eyes
13 - Final Contric - Need
14 - Trekellion Skyway - In Memoriam
15 - Trekellion Skyway - The Giant's Dance
16 - Tina Fulker - Gash
17 - Tina Fulker - Boys
18 - Tina Fulker - Teen Dream
19 - Tina Fulker - Solidified / Happified
20 - Tina Fulker - Wish We Could Move to Paradise
21 - Bourbonese Qualk - Blood-Orange-Bargain Day
22 - Brian Aspro - [excerpts]
23 - Erik Clayton - Thin Girl
24 - Erik Clayton - Take Your Bloody Hand...
25 - Erik Clayton - Lazy Girls
26 - Erik Clayton - Little Black Box (part two)
27 - Vertical Hold - Injustice
28 - The Great Bone & the Four-a-Day Men - Twenty Drinking Vouchers
29 - The Great Bone & the Four-a-Day Men - The Texas Chainstore Massacre
30 - Asylum Penguins - Vivisection
31 - Asylum Penguins - Chicken House
32 - Rags Woggle - True Colours
 
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The Last Supper (1984) C70

The Last Supper was probably the better known of the compilations released by Adventures in Reality, released roughly around the time of Third Mind's Red Sand - probably eclipsed by Red Sand to some extent, which is a shame as I'd say it's a tighter compilation with a slightly higher quota of surprises. I think it originally came with issue L of Adventures in Reality, but mine is a presumably later edition, so I didn't get the mag, so if you want scans I'm afraid you'll just have to keep looking. I'm sure they're out there. I've already seen other virtual versions of The Last Supper out there, although the one I downloaded was in mono with each side of the tape digitised as a single track, so this is digitised from my own copy of the tape, with which I've made a bit of fucking effort, know what I mean?

No-one contributing to this tape should really require much introduction, possibly excepting Gorilla Aktiv (of whom I'd never heard at the time but are wonderful and sounded a lot like DAF) and Tex Mirror H (who eventually gave birth to In the Nursery). Otherwise, Alan probably already said it all here. Apparently there's a chance The Last Supper may be getting a CD reissue, at which point this post will disappear for obvious reasons, so enjoy it while you can.

Finally, there's a split second of the Test Department track cutting out on my copy, which sounds like a fault with the copying, maybe a loose connection or something. I've cut and pasted in an effort to repair it, which probably isn't perfect; so if you're tapping your toe to Forward and suddenly feel like you missed a beat, that would be my doing, but I still say it sounds better than a crackle and a moment of silence.

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

Tracks:
1 - SPK - Ich Klage An
2 - SPK - Satori
3 - Gorilla Aktiv - Spiegelbild
4 - Gorilla Aktiv - Ottos Pornos
5 - Autentisk Film - Polaroid
6 - Smersh - X, X, X, Going on L
7 - Bourbonese Qualk - In the Flesh
8 - Test Department - Forward
9 - Audio Leter - A 'Lot' of Time
10 - Muslimgauze - Metropolis
11 - Muslimgauze - Trans/Time
12 - Tex Mirror H - Sister
13 - Attrition - Mr. Toma

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v/a - A Person's Healthy Guide to Listening (1991) C70

This was a cassette release by Regelwidrig Recordings, the work of one Simon Kelly whom I vaguely recall as a wonderful guy with whom Glenn Wallis, myself, and Paul Condon shared pints at Bradley's Spanish Bar in Hanway Street. Annoyingly, it was one of those cassette releases which came clad in fancy, fiddly packaging which meant you couldn't just slot it in with the others on the shelf. I appreciate the effort to keep things interesting and special, but there were a few people guilty of this sort of thing and it was always kind of annoying, and the end result nearly always seemed kind of half-arsed and never as good as the artist presumably hoped it would look. This one came in a large card box with a photograph slapped on the cover at an angle and an apostrophe missing from the title; and anyway, should it not be A Person's Guide to Healthy Listening? Wouldn't that make more sense? Anyway, opening the box - which is no longer necessary since it all fell apart with age and now looks even crappier - caused bits of paper to spill forth across one's listening space - track lists, information, and bits of artwork which I presume to have been supplied by the individual artists because they're all different shapes and sizes and only five of the contributors are represented in this way.

Which is probably why I never listened to the fucking thing more than once, which is a shame because Simon clearly put a lot of effort into it and spent some money on getting it properly mastered and so on, as you will hear. In fact, this tape makes for pretty convincing listening once you've sat down, having swept up a million bewildering pictures of Islamic shoes supplied by Bryn Jones, the man who invented the racist instrumental, it could be argued.

You should probably know of at least a few of these artists, and of the ones I hadn't heard of either, there's not much I can tell you. I always assumed Shock City was something to do with Stefan Jaworzyn of Whitehouse who briefly ran a similarly named label and publishing imprint, but apparently not.

Anyway, enjoy!

Download the thirteen tracks and various related scans by clicking on this link.

Tracks:
1 - Nocturnal Emissions - Raised Beach
2 - Shock City - One World Before the World's Ways Waste the World Away
3 - Das Kunst - Probe
4 - Bourbonese Qualk - O Sonambulo
5 - Konstruktivists - Desire (part one)
6 - Konstruktivists - Desire (part two)
7 - Asmus Tietchens - Lemminge
8 - Jouissance - Delirium Dosage
9 - Illusion of Safety - Musikfuck
10 - Shock City - Alienateaghurkin
11 - Due Process - RRRadio WCVW Extract
12 - Contact with a Curve - Balloon
13 - Muslimgauze - United States of Islam


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