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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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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v/a - A Sudden Surge of Power (1983) C90

You may have noticed how I'm in the habit of apologising for the stuff I post here, occasionally even writing something amounting to I wouldn't bother if I were you; well, not today. A Sudden Surge of Power gets my vote for the greatest compilation tape of all time, and it's probably no exaggeration to say this thing changed my life when I first heard it. This collection tipped me off to a lot of stuff without which my life would have been significantly poorer, and of the eighteen individual contributing artists, there remain just eight whose work I never subsequently hunted down on vinyl or on other tapes. Fuck - I even ended up knowing a few of these people as friends. Third Mind's Red Sand is the one which always seems to get the publicity, and which is fondly remembered by industrial music historians who weren't actually fucking there; and Red Sand is great, and yes, I would never have bothered checking out DDAA were it not for that tape, but Sudden Surge was the one you actually listened to for pleasure because it was such a fantastic and varied assemblage of the weird and wonderful with a good few of those Wild Planet big names we were all gagging to hear.

Some trivia:

• Laugh by Mandible Rumpus may actually be the greatest song ever to appear on a compilation tape. Their 7" single wasn't as good though. Shame.
• These two Mex tracks come from the lad's Happy Life 7" which, at the risk of hyperbole, is probably one of the greatest 7" singles of all time, alongside Gambit of Shame's wonderful 18 out of 20, in which Mex also had a hand. Complete your Mex collection here.
• Cult of the Supreme Being were Mex and the late and greatly missed Robert Dellar, in case anyone was wondering.
• These are still my two all-time favourite Attrition tracks. I've heard a million versions of Monkey in a Bin but this one remains the most powerful for me.
• John Balance had something to do with Cultural Amnesia, but I'm not sure what - unless he just supplied the artwork for them or summink.
• Behold - even Chris & Cosey's track sounds great!
• Dave Henderson's favourite track was apparently Strangeways (because that's what he told me, so it isn't really apparently at all), and wouldn't it have been fucking wonderful if 400 Blows had lived up to their initial promise at least long enough to make a decent album?

The tape came with a highly informative 24-page A5 booklet with contributions from everyone involved, which I've scanned and included in the download along with cover, flyer, and a CFC tapes catalogue of the time.

Download the twenty-five tracks, cover and booklet by clicking on this link.

Tracks:
1 - Mandible Rumpus - On the Floor
2 - Mandible Rumpus - Laugh
3 - Mex - Happy Life
4 - Mex - Veins
5 - Gambit of Shame - Gambit of Shame
6 - Section 10 - Mr. Parker
7 - Cult of the Supreme Being - Chlorine Fills My Lungs
8 - Cult of the Supreme Being - God is Thicker than Water
9 - Attrition - Hang Me
10 - Attrition - Monkey in a Bin
11 - Test Dept - Shockwerk
12 - The Cause for Concern - Disturbing Visions
13 - Martin Howard Naylor - Modulation 4/5
14 - Cultural Amnesia - Colourblind
15 - Cultural Amnesia - The Pigs Are Coming
16 - Paul Kelday - Angel Hair
17 - New 7th Music - Apocalypse
18 - Chris & Cosey - Light Fantastic
19 - We Be Echo - Survivalist I
20 - We Be Echo - Sex Slave
21 - Ramshackle Ammunition Band - Space Song
22 - 400 Blows - Strangeways
23 - Twelve Cubic Feet - Fred's Song
24 - Red Herring - UAB Advert
25 - Red Herring- Crispy Wrap

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