Due Process - RRRadio 12-15 (1988) C60

Here's another edition of the crazy hour of radio fun brought to you by Due Process back in 1988, similar sort of thing to the Radio 1 Roadshow but without bearded kiddy-fiddlers. If you were paying attention last week you'll already know what the deal is with the RRRadio tapes. This one utilises contributions from Asmus Tietchens, Brume, Psyclones and the mighty DDAA. I'm guessing the DDAA material is the twanging you can hear very near the beginning of the set, at least based on Ronsard and other classics with which I'm more familiar. For what it may be worth, in the event of this initially sounding like random shite, it's all built up to a serious head of steam once you get into the second side, so stick with it.

 

Download the tape and cover by licking on this clink.

 

Return to Index

Allegory (1992) C40

Allegory was a compilation put together by Mark of Impulse, the only one which wasn't associated with an issue of the mag, and, so far as I recall, dating to the time he was making a go of running his thing as a label - see also Konstruktivists AGM tape and the Muslimgauze 7" he released. I'm sure you're both all familiar with most of the contributors here - Pure Motorised Instinct was Stephen Jarvis from Nagamatzu, Tautologize represents Mark's brief tenure as part of the factor X pyramid scheme, and so on and so forth.

To briefly adopt my Negative Neddy persona, I have to say, thirty years later and I'm still fucking mystified by the brief descent into industrial rock karaoke with underwhelming cover versions of chart smashers by Front 242 and the Throbbing Gristles, not least because I seem to recall Another Headache being somewhat better than this one might suggest; but never mind. Maybe it's just me. Once over those particular humps, the tape settles into a very pleasing rhythm of not-quite-ambient sound concluding with Dark Star's stunning P2C2E.

There was also a tiny wee booklet of artwork with this one, some related, some not at all related and therefore maybe pertaining to persons who failed to stump up their tracks in time (guessing here), so I've scanned that and it's included in the download.

Download the nine tracks, cover and booklet by clicking on this link.

Tracks:
1 - Pure Motorised Instinct - Shaking Death's Hand
2 - Voltoid - Tragedy for You
3 - Another Headache - Hamburger Lady
4 - Antonym - Cinnamon Air
5 - The Impulse fX - Tautologize
6 - Attrition - The Third House
7 - Brume - Suck Your Bones
8 - Konstruktivists - Untitled II
9 - Dark Star - P2C2E
 
Return to Index

Raw Opium Enema (1994) C60

I've nearly digitised all of my compilations now, with only Impulse mag's Allegory and Trev Ward's Power to Destroy (next week probably) still to be transmogrified, so far as I can work out. This one escaped the routine sweeps because I had it under M on the shelf as a Mlehst tape, it being the work of the man behind Bandaged Hand Produce.

Aside from being one of those collections I always found exciting because you have no idea what the fuck is going to come out of the speakers when you first press play, this one is also distinguished by its exceptional sound quality, which seems to have been a thing with Bandaged Hand. I really should have picked up a few more of his tapes when it was still possible to do so.

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

Tracks:
1 - Brume - Ronde
2 - Herb Mullin - Over and Over
3 - factor X - Forever Roses
4 - T.U.O.B. + Okaniwa Fumiharo - n.v.1
5 - Expose Your Eyes - Absolute Spongiforms
6 - Mlehst - Anal Dentist
7 - Cacophony '33' - Riding the Aorta
8 - Lunus - Introductione alla Terra
9 - Expose Your Eyes - Bongo Trasho
10 - Sof Tillan's And - Television Teenager
11 - Cacophony '33' - Carboot (excerpt)
12 - Defacato - Burnett
 

Return to Index

Cassette Music 5 (1994) C60

Here's the last of my compilations from Dave Hopwood's excellent Personal Soundtracks label - not sure if it's the best of the bunch but it's probably a contender. As for the individual tracks - was never entirely convinced by Brume, although I can no longer even remember why, but this one is excellent and seems to foreshadow a lot of that glitchy laptop stuff by a good couple of years; and talking of foreshadowing, Cacophony '33' were apparently recording vapourwave roughly two decades before anyone else - vapourwave here distinguished as the sort of repurposing done so well by Blank Banshee and others, as distinct from, you know, Africa by Toto and other stuff from which it borrows. I never got around to nabbing any Cacophony '33' material at the time, and I should have done because they had some great stuff on a couple of other compilations too; Ice Pedestal is presumably factor X again, collaborating with - at a guess - maybe Tom Cox, but I could be wrong; Westland seems to be Parisian noise dude Franck Canorel; Konstruktivists are Konstruktivists, obviously; and Cathedra was Mark who published Impulse and ended up in Konstruktivists, possibly as the longest serving member aside from Glenn himself; Ozone Bandits was Dave Hopwood, and I'm not sure about the rest - apart from factor X, whom I'm sure you will have heard about, and M. Nomized whom you will definitely have heard about unless you've only recently emerged from thirty or forty years spent living in the Amazon basin. Chris Brett's track is also particularly fine and worth singling out as such while I'm here.

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

Tracks:
1 - Brume - Le Chemin Duciel
2 - Cacophony '33' - Chill Up A Rising
3 - TAK/fX - Ice Pedestal
4 - The Rorschach Garden - Night Journey
5 - Westland - Hidden in Argentina
6 - Konstruktivists - Alien Blues
7 - Cathedra - Prima Luce
8 - Ozone Bandits - 12/3/94
9 - Chris Brett - Napalm Gtr 2
10 - M. Nomized - Russolo Music
11 - MMATT - Song X
12 - factor X - She's Mine
13 - Ars Moriend - Lack of Light
14 - Manatisa - No Title

Return to Index

Impulse 5 (1993) C40

Here's the fifth Impulse tape, and in case anyone was wondering, yes, I somehow missed issue four and never had a copy. I haven't scanned the mag on this occasion* because I couldn't be bothered after a certain moaning wanker slagged me off on Twatter last time I shared one of these things, whining what the fuck have you done to our track?, somehow having failed to take into account that it was digitised from a tape which came out nearly thirty years ago, and a tape run off by one of those duplication services and therefore done on the cheap so as to make it practical to give it away with a fanzine, thus meaning people who had never heard of your music would then be exposed to it and might even thusly go forth and buy your fucking records and make you rich despite nothing resembling hard work on your part unless you believe programming a drum machine somehow falls under the heading of graft, your Royal Highness. You'll also notice a certain bit of old tape wobble on a couple of these tracks, so if it's a problem that something you're getting for free isn't quite up to your exacting standards, then simply don't download the fucker, mkay?

 

Anyway, if anyone really feels they need to see the mag that came with this tape, give me a nudge in the comments box and I'll get around to scanning and add it to the download when I get time.

 

You'll probably have heard of a few of these, particularly factor X, Pessary, Smersh, Brume and Left Hand Right Hand whom I only recently found out occasionally featured Karl Blake as well as Charlie Collins from Clock DVA. There's a fair bit of techno on this one, but most of it is pretty well done, and thankfully lacking the usual suggestions of the guy with too much technology pretending to be a frost-faced Matrix cyberstormtrooper in his bedroom in his mum's house; and I'm kicking myself that I never got anything by Left Hand Right Hand.

 

*: Actually, I did in the end.

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

Tracks:
1 - factor X - Determinants
2 - DsorDNE - Orgasme III
3 - Terraform - Meld
4 - Pessary - Dark Shadows
5 - Cathedra - Voices
6 - Smersh - Crazy Orange Atom - Do You Remember Love?
7 - Agonije - Un Soffio Di Immagine
8 - Left Hand Right Hand - White City
9 - Brume - Zindoo

Return to Index