Sally Patience - No Fish (1984) C30

Welcome to the second week of our piscine collection. This one wasn't actually a tape either, being three tracks bequeathed unto myself by Larry Peterson for reasons explained last week, plus I've added their token 7" seeing as it's great and will presently set you back $75 on Discogs, or fifty-nine pounds and fifty-six English pence, if you like. As with the Peter North tracks, I've given it a title from one of the songs, and it's pure coincidence that it also refers to fish.

Down to business...

Sally Patience were Catherine O'Sullivan and Michael Jones. Michael Jones was a member of the Event Group who also had a solo tape available from Cause for Concern (which I should have bought but didn't) and who was half of the Mandible Rumpus. Mandible Rumpus recorded Laugh which possibly remains the greatest thing I've ever heard on a DIY cassette and which sends shivers down my spine to this day - and which is on Larry's excellent Sudden Surge of Power compilation in case you haven't already bagged it.

For the sake of argument you could probably call both Mandible Rumpus and Sally Patience - of which no member is named Sally, by the way - the same thing: early analogue synth duo with a faint touch of Banshees and probably what all the kids on the street now term cold wave. Actually, considering what some of the synth duos who made it big sounded like, it's a massive pisser that this lot didn't. I'm not sure I've even met anyone who owned an Erasure record.

Download these crucial jams by clicking on this link, kids.

Tracks:

1 - No Fish
2 - Susan
3 - Under Donahue's Church
4 - The Triangle Man
5 - Buried in My Boots

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Peter North - Singing Fish (1984) C30

Here's another tape that wasn't actually a tape (but which I've labelled C30 because that's probably what it would have been were it a tape). These were five tracks Larry Peterson sent to me in case I wanted to stick them on a Do Easy compilation, presumably because Peter North had sent them to him and he was winding down his tape label by then. I was also winding down my own tape label at the time so nothing came of it. Peter North sent me a few tapes and I seem to recall one of them being three C60s with hand-tailored artwork (possibly Laminated Studies), and there was another tape when he morphed into Nort BC, which was the name he used for the two of the cassettes which appear on the Discogs page. They featured hand tailored covers - photocopies with rubber stamps and felt-tip colour, - but all I can recall of them was that they mostly sounded like Fish at Liberty, which you have here - someone dropping marbles onto a glockenspiel through an echo box for a long time. So, although they sound kind of interesting in small doses, a little went a long way, which is probably why I no longer have the tapes he sent me although I sort of wish I did.

 

I know. I'll bet you can't wait to hear it.

 

I still don't really know what to make of this stuff and I have to admit it didn't get a lot of rewinds from me back in the day, but listening to this now in 2024 I'd say the man was ahead of the curve with the weirdy tape manipulation stuff. With hindsight, I'd guess three hours of this was just a bit too much to work as my introduction, but I'd still buy a vinyl reissue if there was one out there.

Word of warning - there's also, as I have just discovered, a significantly better known Peter North who worked in the adult entertainment industry, so Google may let you down in this respect if you wish to know more; and if you came here looking for more of the star of the North Pole series, I'm afraid you're very much in the wrong place. This Peter North lived in Clapton in east London and wrote nice letters.

 

Download the halibut, perch, tench and Nemo by clicking on this link.

Tracks:

1 - The Singing Fish
2 - Fish at Liberty
3 - Walking with Mr. and Mrs. Fish
4 - He Fish Here in Gaps
5 - She Fish Here in Gaps

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An Oral, Narcissical, Narcotical, Industrial Affair (1983) C30

I suspect this was one of those ideas which didn't seem quite so amazing to its creator next morning. I don't think CFC025 ever made it into any of CFC's photocopied lists of available tapes, and having slipped it onto the sticker with which he tried to promote the live Nocturnal Emissions cassette which was eventually vinyled as Chaos (tough - if all you beardy hipster shitbags can have your 'vinyls' then I get to use it as a verb), Cause for Concern's Larry Peterson seemed reluctant to further push the thing.

'What the hell is it,' I asked.

'You wouldn't like it,' he said.

'But what is it?'

'It's nothing. Anyway I've deleted it now.'

etc. etc.

Somehow I eventually managed to diddle a copy out of him, no art, no cover, just a tape with those generic CFC labels designed by Kevin of We Be Echo; and I listened to the thing, and it all became clear.

Actually, contrary to Larry's expectations of the morning after, I found it very entertaining.

Download whatever the hell this thing is by clicking on this link.

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Adventures of Twizzle - Hitler's Trousers after the Blast (1983) C60

I've already explained Adventures of Twizzle at length, and several times over in the course of previous blog posts here, here, and here. If you can't be arsed to follow the links and do a bit of homework, well all right - Adventures of Twizzle were formed by Margaret Thatcher, an ex-Bay City Roller (but I'm not going to tell you which one) and the man who held the land speed record between the years 1979 to 1985. They had a massive hit with Dancing in the Dark, a song which is usually erroneously credited to Bruce Springsteen. Neither of them ever learned how to ride bikes.

This was their second tape and the first one I heard. It's quite different to most of their other stuff, comprising short tuneful pieces rather than howling noise, and the dates given on the sleeve seem to suggest it was compiled rather than specifically recorded as an album, although I could be wrong there. Also, it came in weird packaging - a Sony C60 loose inside the box of a child's wooden jigsaw - one of those cheapo ones about the size of a fag packet - with their artwork glued to the reverse of the box. Unfortunately at the time I was getting a bit tired of tapes in weird packages which you had to leave in a pile next to your regular cassettes, so I made my own sleeve from photocopies of the artwork and kept it in a regular jewel case; and annoyingly I seem to have lost the kid's jigsaw version, so that's a lesson learned. The scans included in the download are my version of the cover, plus the flyer which first inspired me to write to them - I think it fell out of an envelope full of stuff from Larry Peterson.

I know I haven't said much about the music, but for what it's worth, regardless of the low level of technology involved, I'd still say this is one of the best tapes I ever bought. Sometimes a tape recorder and a good idea is really all you need.

Download the sixteen tracks, cover and flyer by clicking on this link.

Tracks:
1 - Demolition I
2 - Before All That
3 - Cuddly Linda Girl
4 - Flag Miles Short
5 - The Education of a Rat
6 - Adventures
7 - Jude Moan / Silence
8 - Umbah Oombah
9 - Demolition II
10 - Just Listen
11 - Cherry Cake
12 - On and On and On
13 - Bang-Utot
14 - The Deep Love
15 - Don't Look Now
16 - What For?


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Eat the Rich (1984) C60

For some reason I thought I'd already digitised this one, but I hadn't, so here it is, nearly a year after Political Piggies, the compilation to which it was a follow up, and another obscure chapter in the prehistory of the Grey Wolves. I seem to remember it came out pretty quickly after the first tape, even too quick for me to spam the poor buggers with yet another brace of underwhelming Do Easy contributions in a doomed attempt to spread the word far and wide so that I wouldn't have to get a proper job when I left college.

If you're a regular here, you should know at least a few of these names. The Unkommuniti was Tim from Stereolab with a few others, Brides of Christ II were this lot, Opera for Infantry were er... the Grey Cubs, I suppose, and Pacific 231 was, or rather is, Pierre Jolivet who seems to have kept himself busy over the years. Mass of Black had a couple of tapes on the Subhumans' label. A-Void appears to have been a very early Stan Batcow thing, from what I can tell, unless it's a different A-void to the one listed on Discogs. It does sound a bit like him though. As for the rest, if you're reading this on something with internet access, then you're in as good a position as I am when it comes to typing names into a search engine. Discogs seems to acknowledge that most of the others existed, but beyond revealing that Kteis Sekret once appeared on the same compilation tape as 23 Skidoo, there's not a whole lot I can tell you.

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

Tracks:
1 - Unkommuniti - Yog Introduction
2 - Geschlekt Akt - The Slave
3 - Brides of Christ II - The Tongues of Boys & Girls
4 - Society's Victims - Reject Religion
5 - Opera for Infantry - Self Discipline
6 - The Cause for Concern - Psychick Pillocks
7 - Dark Party - Night Nurse
8 - Mass of Black - Invision
9 - Berlinerluft - Point 1
10 - Society's Victims - Army
11 - Dark Party - The Edge
12 - Kteis Sekret - Fleischhaken
13 - A-Void - Necropolis
14 - Opera for Infantry - Laughter for Drowned Men
15 - Mass of Black - Overseer
16 - Unkommuniti - On the Washington Monument
17 - Pacific 231 - Useless Weapon (extract)
18 - A-Void - God is Dead

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Introducing the Brides of Christ II (1983) C30

I don't know much about this one. I seem to recall that Trev Ward thought it was so great that he insisted I have a listen, which was effected by him lending me his copy, sending it through the post on the condition that I'd send it back once I was done. So that's what we did, which seems weird with hindsight, but maybe he just didn't want to diddle them out of a sale, which seems fair enough. Anyway, I liked it enough to buy a copy.

So far as I know, this was Rock Wilson and Dave Ryder, also occasionally known as R&D Group 28, a name under which they released one tape (according to Discogs) and appeared on Sterile Records' Earthly Delights compilation. Rock Wilson was also something to do with Apocalypso a Go Go zine, whilst Dave Ryder recorded as Plastic Bag and put a tape out through Larry Peterson's Cause for Concern Tapes which I really fucking wish I had bought at the time. There's a Plastic Bag track on Paranoia is Awareness and it's one of the best things on there in my view.

Anyway, here you go - fundamentalist Christian electronics a good few years before anyone had heard of that other lot. This is arguably one of the odder things thrown up by the whole weirdy tape scene as was, and it still sounds great if you ask me.

Download the tape and cover by clicking on this link.

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v/a - Political Piggies (1984) C60

This was the first compilation put out by Trev Ward and Dave Padbury, then collectively known as Opera for Infantry. Opera for Infantry eventually morphed into the Grey Wolves and had a string of hits, as you'll probably remember, whilst simultaneously stirring up controversy of a general thrust implying they might actually subscribe to some of the extreme Fascist beliefs blasted forth in their music. Having met them a couple of times and spent at least a few years writing to Trev, I'm confident of this being complete bollocks, and clues as to why I might hold with such a conviction can be found here, a tape firmly rooted in the short-lived but fertile period of cross fertilisation occurring between weirdy electronics and the anarchopunk scene; and yes, I'm well aware of all that post-left green anarchist shite having been plopped out of the same arse, but that's something else entirely...

I think this was also the first compilation to which I was asked to contribute, so apologies for my tracks. Marginally less crackly versions can be found elsewhere on this blog if you're stupid enough to look for them. Anyway, it was massively exciting finding myself sharing ferric oxide with Nocturnal Emissions, Nurse With Wound and the Apostles, and I still say this was a fantastic genre-busting tape. You'll probably recognise a few of the names here, and I'm pretty sure the Nocturnal Emissions and Nurse With Wound tracks resurfaced elsewhere, although The Strange Life of August Strindberg was almost certainly an exclusive at the time. Steve Stapleton was known for his generosity when it came to tape labels no-one had heard of asking him for tracks. There's more by Anarchist Angels and Family Patrol Group elsewhere on this blog, if you want to check the index. There's more about Epidemic on the excellent Punky Gibbon site, and Alternative and the Destructors were pretty big names at one point so you should be able to find something about them if you look. Alternative released stuff on Crass, for example.

I suspect they may have been experiencing some technical difficulties at Anal Probe Tapes world headquarters when they were running off my copy of this tape, unless the fuck ups were on the master copy. The tracks varied in recording volume quite a bit so I've tried to bring the quieter ones up to the same level. Also there were a couple of instances of what sounds like a lead cutting out - first during Living a Lie, after which the track comes back much louder. I did some fucking about, raised the volume of the first verse, and copied the missing riff from later in the track so as to effect a repair, which is hopefully better than listening to the track with a few seconds silence just as the chorus kicks off. There was also a gap in the middle of Seen through Tear Stained Eyes, occurring during a sung passage ruling out the possibility of making a repair by copying anything from elsewhere in the song, so I've er... just copied and reversed a bit to at least make the screw up sound deliberate, which will probably make more sense if you listen to the thing.

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

Tracks:
1 - Nocturnal Emissions - Rabbits Don't Cry
2 - Anarchist Angels - I Cry with Despair
3 - Destructors V - Urban Terrorist
4 - Do Easy - Waterside at 12
5 - Epidemic - Living a Lie
6 - White Elephants Over Jamaica - Adverts
7 - Alternative - Seen through Tear Stained Eyes
8 - Do Easy - Kick the Dwarf
9 - Epidemic - No Identity
10 - Family Patrol Group - Cronus
11 - Opera for Infantry - Resettlement
12 - Destructors V - Khmer Rouge Boogie
13 - The Cause for Concern - The Occasional Me and You
14 - Alternative - Caroline's Carnival
15 - Nurse With Wound - The Strange Life of August Strindberg
16 - The Apostles - The Phoenix

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v/a - Paranoia is Awareness (1982) C90

Regardless of anything else, it really has to be said that Larry Peterson knew how to put a compilation together. A Sudden Surge of Power, which he released on his own Cause for Concern label, remains pretty much my favourite of its kind, and frankly it still pisses over better publicised tapes from the same era, notably the undoubtedly decent but somewhat overrated Red Sand. I'll put A Sudden Surge of Power up here at some point in the not too distant future, but in the meantime, here's Paranoia is Awareness - Larry's first compilation, maybe not the classic that was the later collection, but a fucking good showing nevertheless.

Because I'm a generous old fucker, I've scanned the A4 booklet which came with the tape, so that's included as a series of JPEG files in the folder which comes with the download. My copy was customised by various members of the Apostles and the Assassins of Hope, adding sarcastic commentary to their own respective pages before Larry got the thing to the safety of an envelope with my name and address written on it, so although I've cleaned up all the scans as much as I could so as to get rid of yellowing, coffee stains and so on, I left the thoughts of Chairman Martin as they were because it seemed right to do so.

The inclusion of the booklet also means I don't need to spend too much time telling you about these artists. You should be familiar with the Apostles, Matfield & the Pond and We Be Echo if you've been following this blog, and Third Door from the Left were the group of which Kevin Thorne was a part before he started recording as We Be Echo. The track here is actually an excerpt from a Third Door from the Left live tape released by Cause for Concern, one which I might put up here providing it hasn't been reissued by Vinyl on Demand (I still haven't got around to checking, although I know Frank did Face the Firing Squad on vinyl). You will no doubt recognise the Nocturnal Emissions tracks which first appeared on their classic Fruiting Body album which you own, or you should own, and if you don't, get the fuck away from me. I think Plastic Bag were pals of Nigel from Nocturnal Emissions as they had a mailing address around the corner in Camberwell and used to put out a zine called Apocalypso a Go Go, of which one issue was full of extremely naughty pictures and another was a special on Nocturnal Emissions. They also recorded some great harsh electronics as Brides of Christ II. Finally, I seem to recall seeing Nervous Legion mentioned in the cassette column in Sounds a good year before Dave Henderson started the whole Wild Planet thing, so I have the impression they were something significant which vanished off the radar just as I was becoming aware of this sort of stuff. I'm sure Larry told me that the guy behind Nervous Legion committed suicide, but I could be getting my wires crossed. Terrorist, as it appears on the tape, seems to end with the sort of repetitive scratches which suggest it may have been taped from a 7" single (can't be heard here due to my cleaning up process), which is intriguing; so if anyone knows anything about Nervous Legion, I'd love to know more. I've always thought those two Nervous Legion tracks were the bollocks.

Download all thirty-five tracks, cover and twenty-page booklet by clicking on this link.

Tracks:
1 - The Apostles - Redifusion Refugee
2 - The Apostles - Escaping Again
3 - Matfield & the Pond - Toxteth
4 - Matfield & the Pond - Paem Wyrd (theme)
5 - Matfield & the Pond - All My Toys
6 - Nervous Legion - Terrorist
7 - Nervous Legion - Gas
8 - NCP - Wild Thing / Johnny B. Goode / Standard Punk Song
9 - Assassins of Hope - Prisoner of Law
10 - Assassins of Hope - Rejection
11 - The Cause for Concern - Some Suffer
12 - Tom Castle - Adric
13 - Red Herring - Newman's New Trees I (advertisement)
14 - Red Herring - EZ Chew (advertisement)
15 - Tom Castle - This Place is So Rewarding
16 - Red Herring - Extranose (advertisement)
17 - Red Herring - Newman's New Trees II (advertisement)
18 - Tom Castle - You Stop Me (Doing What I Want)
19 - Red Herring - Newman's New Trees III (advertisement)
20 - APF Brigade - Dreaming
21 - APF Brigade - Burnt Offering
22 - APF Brigade - 1805-1945
23 - Third Door from the Left - Live at the Ship
24 - Nocturnal Emissions - LD50
25 - Nocturnal Emissions - Routine Surveillance Exercise
26 - The Event Group - Seward Rap
27 - Michael Jones - Uncle & Auntie Bastard
28 - Michael Jones - Delicious Enemy
29 - Michael Jones - Dance of the Wild Brains
30 - Michael Jones - Drinking Like Mad
31 - Plastic Bag - In the Corridors of a Train
32 - Swinging 3-Man Junta - Untitled
33 - Swinging 3-Man Junta - Larry is a Rock Star
34 - Alien Kulture - The Burden
35 - Tom Castle - Doors of the Mind

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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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Matfield & the Pond - Paem Wyrd (1982) C90

I didn't think I was going to have much to say about this one - the work of Matfield & the Pond, a duo comprising David Luery and David Andrews - but in the booklet accompanying the Cause for Concern label's Paranoia is Awareness C90 compilation, I find:

Matfield & the Pond were formed way back in 1975 completely by accident in Dave's bedroom one night. This historic occasion was actually captured on tape for posterity. The initial flood of creativity brought forth songs such as Klingon Jumper and Supergirl, culminating in the legendary Rough Acres tapes recorded in Borough Green. For reasons known only to the Davids, the Pond then split up. One David left after the band had recorded the Pond's Christmas single, and the other David went on to form the excellent band Infants' School.

During this first period the Pond played their only gig at a party in Matfield. General comment among punters was that they had pre-empted the punks' attitude to concerts by some eighteen months. The band deny this and that it merely confirmed their suspicions that concerts were boring to do, and that songs should be written and recorded - full stop.

In late 1979 the Daves reformed. One David actually bought a bass guitar at this period. Later Casio, Harmonium, and Waddingtons' Computone were added. Contrary to popular opinion, the Pond have never used a synthesiser or a studio. Both are unnecessary - studios especially are the death of many good bands. Without them all you have left is your initiative and your own creativity.

Regarding Paem Wyrd, the David with the typewriter describes it as one side songs, the other side based on the Middle English epic Beowulf, all songs recorded at Pond Studio 3 in Matfield, Christmas '81 to Easter '82. I'm therefore assuming Paem Wyrd to be the cassette referred to but otherwise unidentified by Music Emporium's Phillipe Collignon on this Discogs page referring to a later Matfield & the Pond vinyl compilation which I'd never heard of until I checked just last week, and which now regrettably costs a fucking fortune.

Matfield & the Pond were formed by accident in the attic of a small cottage in Matfield. It was a direct response to the punk revolution in that it entered the spirit of anyone can do it. A musician and a non-musician exploring the idea of write, record, forget. It was an entirely non-profit making collective that released three cassettes on the alternative home recording circuit. No promotion, entirely word of mouth.

Pondsongs and Beowulf was the first double release in about 1980. It sold about three-hundred copies. The price was the cost of the cassette plus nine pence to cover the cost of the Revox it was recorded on. It sold a lot in Europe, noticeably in Italy and Holland. (A video recently surfaced on YouTube constructed by an Italian fan). This cassette was the culmination of their appliance of non-musicianship combined with musicianship plus strongly written songs. [some other cassette, the account seems a bit vague here] sold 787 copies worldwide purely on word of mouth and prior to the internet. It was released in 1982. It has been compared to Syd Barrett, the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, Comus. It doesn't sound like any of them. They also appeared on the compilation Paranoia Is Awareness along with Throbbing Gristle and the Apostles.

Not Quite ‘It’ was a compilation put out by a record company in Bexhill. The band refused to accept any money. All of their material is currently unavailable although it has been digitised and remastered.

Well, I suppose that roughly squares with the first version. I bought this from Larry Peterson who released it on Cause for Concern with the catalogue number CFC024, and I bought it because Toxteth had been one of the best tracks on Paranoia is Awareness. That said, I've never quite been sure what to make of the full length tape. I'm assuming the name might be some sort of pun on Canterbury progsters Hatfield & the North, and certainly Paem Wyrd betrays certain proggy tendencies, not least a few slightly wearying attitudes about what counts as proper music; but on the other hand, it's tuneful, generally nicely done, and with a few belly laughs here and there.

Enjoy.

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

Tracks:
1 - Talons So Finch
2 - Toxteth
3 - St. Francis of Assisi
4 - Calculator Zombie
5 - The Pond Go Jazz
6 - Fanfart / I Give You... Cod
7 - En Ni Wun Kan B
8 - Les Bleus
9 - Spaced Out Laid Back West Coast Hippy's Lament
10 - Earwigo
11 - Tenderly
12 - Paem Wyrd


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v/a - From Down Yondah (1984) C120

Here's another relatively obscure compilation, another one on which I had a track, and rooting around on the internet I realise there were some genuine unsung weirdy music pioneers here, quite aside from those we all already know about; so my ego is a little larger than it was just before I digitised this tape.

From Down Yondah came as a C120 selotaped to a knackered charity shop record with a vague stack of associated A4 photocopies - vague, because it was sort of difficult to tell where the compilation artwork ended and Lennart Eilersen's manic accompanying letter began. Lennart Eilersen, also known as Uddah Buddah, was the man behind Selbstmord Organisation - one of my favourite things to emerge from the whole noisy tape scene of the early 1980s; and From Down Yondah was the label's international assemblage of friends and sympathetic parties. Cloister Crime, We Be Echo, Asepisis, and Do Easy are already fairly well represented on this blog, so please refer to the index and make sure you download the Cloister Crime tape if you haven't already done so because it's a fucking cracker. Opera for Infantry turned into the Grey Wolves, Unkommuniti turned into Stereolab, and Swedish Nature eventually became Brighter Death Now. Club Moral, FâLX çèrêbRi and Die Form surely require no introduction. The Cause for Concern was Larry Peterson who used to run the tape label of that name and who is now some sort of Thunderbirds puppet mogul or summink. Yttersta Tagghudingen was something to do with Lennart Eilersen, as referred to above, some kind of outgrowth of his magnificent Enhoenta Bödlar - which also featured Roger from Brighter Death Now and whose Ogreish Guttural Wounds is probably the greatest album ever recorded. The rest can be looked up on Discogs, probably.

While we're here, here's another masterpiece from the same label just in case you missed it. Someone really needs to write a book about the Swedish weirdy music scene. Those guys really had their shit together. Maybe it was something in the water.

I've always been a bit wary of C120s so have probably only played this thing a couple of times at most. Unfortunately for the sake of enduring quality this probably hasn't made a lot of difference as the tape appears to have been copied at an unusually low sound level. I've done what I can to restore the thing. Also, my own track was split between the end of side one and the beginning of side two for some stupid reason, so I've replaced it with the original uninterrupted version from The Fourteenth Metal Tape.

Also, I've scanned the Selbstmord catalogue, so that's included in the download for the sake of curiosity. I'd love to know how much of that stuff actually saw the light of day. I still have the first issue of Pok-a-Tok (which is, by the way, possibly the greatest fanzine I've ever read) but I have no idea if the promised From Down Yondah issue ever came out.

Finally, is it my imagination or does this version of The Witches Burn sound different to those posted previously on this blog? 

Download the twenty-five tracks and artwork by clicking on this link.

Tracks:
1 - (introduction)
2 - Club Moral - Tegen Het Ik   
3 - IMCP - Day of Stunts   
4 - Asod Dvi - Det Synkende Synkende Skip   
5 - Live Loop - Breathings   
6 - Caspar Hausers - Slow Albanian Stucco   
7 - Cloister Crime - Sacrum Sacrifice   
8 - The Audience - We Need Fast Paint   
9 - We Be Echo - The Witches Burn   
10 - Asepisis - Genetik Product Control   
11 - Family Patrol Group - Bottle Fuck   
12 - Autentisk Film - Svarte Fugler   
13 - Opera for Infantry - Black Christmas   
14 - Do Easy - United States of America   
15 - The Cause for Concern - To Life + Death   
16 - Laxative Souls - Bryseri Half Anticipation
17 - Unkommuniti - Fry Day 2   
18 - The Rimbaud Brothers - Bite the Bullet   
19 - FâLX çèrêbRi - Olympic Games   
20 - Comando Bruno - Racaille   
21 - Interaccion - X y E   
22 - Die Form - Il Coltello nell Acqua   
23 - Swedish Nature - Suck It   
24 - Diseño Corbusier - Escuadra Popular   
25 - Yttersta Tagghudingen - Amschaspand Abrasax   

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v/a - Circumcise the Foreskin of Your Heart (1983) C60

Here we go. Everybody and their milkman had a compilation tape clogging up fanzine column inches and I was determined that I shouldn't be left out. Additionally I had certain ideas about the sort of thing I wanted to hear on a compilation tape, and the sort of thing I didn't want to hear, and had already begun to formulate cynical thoughts about those independent tape labels which quite clearly just wanted to be EMI, or at least 4AD, and were only slumming it with the rest of us because they couldn't afford to do otherwise, wankers; and, to be more ruthlessly honest, it had also occurred to me that no-one could say what should appear on my tape but me, and I'd sent tracks off to a few tape labels only to be told either that my stuff was shite, or was else not worthy for inclusion on the grounds that I didn't know anyone from SPK.

Fuckers.

Anyway, at the time I was corresponding fairly busily with Larry Peterson of Cause for Concern tapes, architect of the genuinely wonderful A Sudden Surge of Power C90 featuring Chris & Cosey, Attrition, Test Dept and all sorts - the finest compilation of that entire era, I would argue. Larry encouraged me to get a compilation of my own together, and then fobbed me off with a few tracks he'd been sent but obviously didn't want to use for his follow up to A Sudden Surge of Power, and also he put me in touch with Kevin Thorne of We Be Echo who accordingly sent me a track out of the blue without my even having to ask. Plus, I wasn't entirely without my own resources so...

Some of these you may as well just look up on Discogs or wherever given that I never really knew much about them. I understood Citipati, for example, to be something to do with the excellent Adventures of Twizzle (who came up with the title Circumcise the Foreskin of Your Heart, which is from some religious source, possibly), with whom I was in correspondence, but Discogs seems to think they were some sort of New Blockaders side project; and The Prison was the best song on a five track demo which Larry passed on to me, a demo by a band which never actually responded to any of my letters, so I thought fuck it and stuck the track on there anyway. It seemed to fit. I guess it's the same track which appeared on something called Sing As We Go from the previous year. Oh well.

The Desolate Accountants were Pete and Graham, my two friends from school and half of the Pre-War Busconductors, which also included myself and Eggy. The Pre-War Busconductors were a fairly raucous (not to mention stupid) cardboard box drum kit punk band, included here mainly so as to annoy anyone anticipating a fifteen minute track of mains hum by Coil's dentist and named after Aleister Crowley's favourite holiday destination, but also because we all enjoy having our bollocks whipped from time to time, don't we? I included the two Desolate Accountants tracks because I always loved them, and thought they were the most musical of our imaginary bands, the one name from the bunch which could justifiably fill a Vinyl-on-Demand release without too many people asking for a refund.

The Cause for Concern was Larry Peterson having a go at noise as he did from time to time before he realised there was no money in it, and none of the bands on his tape label would ever be famous. I realise with hindsight that Mike Finch was a pseudonym used by Dave Fanning of the Apostles and later Academy 23 with some frequency, so I assume this may have been something to do with him given that he did stuff with Larry on a couple of occasions. He also played bass for Three Heads Nodding, or so I heard somewhere. Three Heads Nodding were, so far as I know, Neil, Kev (possibly) and some others who lived in a squat in the Brougham Road in Hackney just a few doors along from the Apostles. Neil also drew and wrote Ka-Ka Komik back in the days when Viz was still a fanzine sold in Newcastle pubs. Ka-Ka Komik was fucking mint!

NKVD was an alias of Glenn of Konstruktivists to whom I had been writing since A Dissembly came out. I think this version of Mansonik No. 2 may be the original portastudio demo which Glenn later took into the studio and had fancified by Dave Kenny ready for its appearance on his second album. I could be wrong about that, although it sounds different to me.

Asepisis was my friend Jez from school, another Gristle fan who recorded a load of stuff on my equipment, and actually seemed to make a better job of it than I did with the whole noisy electronics schtick. He did a great C60 called The Glory of Punishment for whatever the Grey Wolves' tape label was called at the time, but we fell out (which was my fault). I'm still trying to work up the courage to ask him if I can reissue his C60 here as a free download.

Do Easy was myself, obviously, sounding a lot more Numan-influenced than I remember being the case. Neither did I realise my voice was quite that nasal, although it was pointed out to me, in fact it was even pointed out to me by the bloke out of ABC. Oh well. I still say some of my lyrics were decent, even if the execution left something to be desired.

Probably the best tracks on the whole thing were from Irsol, a band which featured Ash from Attrition and a couple of his friends. Irsol put out two exceptionally wonderful cassettes which have recently been given the vinyl treatment, two exceptionally wonderful cassettes which remain amongst the absolute best of the entire cassette scene to my ears. I've a feeling they may have been a bit pissed off upon discovering that their lovingly recorded tracks ended up sharing tape with an assortment of tossers rummaging around in a broom cupboard and a song called Whip My Bollocks. I actually had my mum drop me off at one Irsol member's house on the Kenilworth Road in Coventry so I could leave four complimentary copies of Circumcise with his dad, or whoever the guy was. They never wrote back. I suppose it might have been the wrong house.

Anyway, that's your lot. It didn't set the world on fire. I think it sold about sixty or seventy copies over the space of a couple of years. There were worse compilations. I'm not sure what else I can say.

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

Tracks:
1 - We Be Echo - Soma Improvement
2 - Desolate Accountants - Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree
3 - The Cause for Concern with Mike Finch - Look in the Mirror
4 - Do Easy - My Remaining Eye
5 - Three Heads Nodding - Sloven Song
6 - Pre-War Busconductors - Whip My Bollocks
7 - NKVD - untitled
8 - Citipati - Improvisations April '83
9 - Irsol - Time Domain
10 - Do Easy - British Movement
11 - Three Heads Nodding - Hitch Hiker
12 - Konstruktivists - Mansonik No. 2
13 - Asepisis - Accidents with More People
14 - His-Create-He - The Prison (that Jack Built)
15 - Irsol - The Stranger
16 - Desolate Accountants - Interview

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