Knife Edge formed in Leeds in 1976 and released one classic single in 1980. The band were not happy with the weak sound of the single as it did not represent their live power but the single sold well locally and got some radio airplay on local stations -as well as getting a few plays by John Peel. The single was released as a double A-Side -with the up-tempo "Say You Will" being backed with the more commercial "Favourite Girl". The single was released on the bands own No Hessle label.
The only other recorded output of the band appears on the various artist LP called 'Rock On' which was released on the EMI label. This was an album that featured "Battle of the Band" winner Knife Edge which featured "Street Credibility" on it. Another unreleased track, "Fighting in the Chapel", which appears on the 'Bored Teenagers Volume 2' compilation LP/CD is taken from a 6-track tape that the band used to sell at gigs that had a sound quality that the whole band preferred. [SOURCE: BORED TEENAGERS]
Label: No Hessle Records – F001
Format:
Vinyl, 7", 45 RPM, Single
Country: UK
Released: 1980
Style: Power Pop, Punk
Tracklist:
A Favourite Girl
B Say You Will
Notes:
"Produced by K&E" (= guitarist Tim Knowles & drummer Martin Edgerton)
Born of a French father and Spanish mother in pre-independence Algeria, Hector Zazou first recorded in the mid-'70s under the name ZNR, as one half of a duo with Joseph Racaille. This early work is light but engaging French chamber jazz, lyrical and quirky, with Zazou playing keyboards and violin. The music has long since lost any radical edge, and the sparse instrumentation gives most of the pieces more the sound of musical sketches than fully realized compositions, but in ZNR, Zazou begins to demonstrate his interest in unusual instrumental timbres and colors, as well as his eclectic musical imagination. Throughout the rest of the 1970s and into the early '80s, Zazou's musical efforts (whatever they might have been), are not represented by any readily available recordings, but some experiments in musical erotica were conducted under the name 'La Perversita', a rare great LP with artwork made by Kiki Picasso, and a production of the famous Bazooka group,
a French, Paris based (punk) artists collective formed by Kiki Picasso, Loulou Picasso, Lulu Larsen, Olivia Clavel, Jean Rouzaud, Bernard Vidal and also Philippe Bailly, active during late 70s and early 80s. They collaborated with French newspaper Libération and other
magazines like Actuel. They also edited their own magazine "Le Regard
Moderne" and several others.
In this release Hector Zazou collaborates with journalist and writers Jeanne Folly, J.L. Henning, and VXZ 375 (Bruno Taravant). This album is post-punk that's very, very sparse when it's not all atonal and chaotic, treading into legit minimalism territory on tracks like the eleven and a half minute "I Love You S..." (which at times sounds so similar to what would become post-rock that it's eerie) while still managing to have a slight-but-noticeable funk/groove angle. Both cover tracks, "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Satisfaction", are completely deranged nonsense, Henry Kaiser shows up outta nowhere to do two minutes of No Wave guitar splutterings for "On Dine", and "La Soupeuse" is an eleven minute "this is clearly French" rewrite of Iggy Pop's "Mass Production", but with even less interest in melody and a steady backbone of guitar feedback and hypnotic drumming.
It's a mess, but it's one of them wildly intriguing messes that definitely worth a listen. [SOURCE: RATE YOUR MUSIC]
Released: 1979 Style: Experimental, New Wave, Leftfield, Minimal Techno, Minimal Wave, No Wave
Tracklist:
Face Pile
A1 Strawberry Fields For Ever 3:49
A2 5'... Et Quelque De Bonheur... 5:43
A3 I Love You S... 11:54
Face Face
B1 Satisfaction 2:29
B2 Para Bokassa 4:16
B3 On Dine 1:55
B4 La Soupeuse 10:33
B5 Untitled 0:26
Notes:
Including the revue called PERVERS n°1 by Bazooka (two black and white posters: 58 x 27,5 cm, with artworks, texts, and a select from the lyrics printed on both sides, generally each poster is folded into four 29 x 29cm squares)
Track B5 is not listed on the cover or label; it contains a brief reprise snippet from "Satisfaction".
Interacción were a multidisciplinary duo from Madrid formed in the early eighties by Carmen L. Fernández (voices, synthesizer and guitar) and Jose Luís Iruretagoyena (synthesizer and drum machine) that worked with minimalist electronic music, image and texts. They distributed their works through parallel channels such as national and international mail order, as well as through national and international collaborations in different compilations.
They released two unofficial cassettes. The first one was 'Extensión de los Significados' which collected works from 1980 to 1983. The second was 'Ancestrales' with sound material from 1984 and 1985.
Very soon they participated in two essential compilations. The first one was in 1983, published by El Consumo del Miedo (Rafael Flores' label) entitled 'Amarga Cosecha', where they incorporated their 'Eros y Psique'. The second, a year later, in the first volume of the compilation 'Necronomicon' -a fanzine made in Ciudad Real that published four issues,
all of them dedicated to experimental avant-garde music- with 'Cadencias'.
In 1985 they published the fanzine "Consecuencias" where they collected part of their visual and Mail-Art work, as well as a small manifesto of their motivations, summarized in feeling, reason, passion, mutual action, imitation, duality, repetition, harmony of the opposite and reflection, including lyrics, poems, quotes from concerts and other information.
In 1986, they released a video called 'Lucis Et Umbrae' which was presented at the II Festival de Vídeo Nacional held at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid in the section Videos a la Carta. As a consequence, they edited a third cassette (with the same title) that collects the sound material of this audiovisual work. [SOURCE: GRUPOS NACIONALES NUEVA OLA 80]
Label:
Not On Label (Interaccion Self-released) – none
The best Headless Chickens release before they started their weird take on dance music, this is straight up early sampling and tape loops, brought together with awesome field recordings. "Monkey Jar" is a great example of early Electro-Rock. "Axe" is a great piece of fucked up Electro Pop which perfectly segues into "The Slice". "The Slice" is basically sampling with a couple moments of guitar being brought in. Next is "Hedge Song" which showcases some great use of tape loops. Next is the fucked up electro pop of "Totalling Dad's Car". "Agit Pop" is a funny little punk song and "The Ghost Of Some Cold Street" is truly haunting. The self tilted Headless Chickens album is truly an expirience that is as haunting as it is enjoyable. [SOURCE: RATE YOUR MUSIC]
Gothic Sex formed in 1988 by members of former Zaragoza bands Notre Dame and Cadáveres Aterciopelados. They have released a good number of recordings, including one EP ('El Frenesí'), two VHS tapes and four albums.
The band is formed by Lord Gothic (vocals/guitar) and Lady Gothic (drums), founding members of the band, and by Metal Storm (guitar) and Dr. Van Helsing (bass) as additional live musicians.
In their concerts they try to dramatize ironic scenes about religion, preversion, false morality, cruelty, hypocrisy, absurd violence, deformation of beings... They criticize all these themes through "FX-Gore" full of allegories and symbols, with a tragic-comic aura in all their stagings. [SOURCE: LAST.FM]
Fröhliche Eiszeit were a German Neue Deutsche Welle and Minimal Wave band formed in 1979 in Frankfurt and disbanded in 1982. Their members were Bernd Hasenfus (later in Cocks In Stained Satin and Der Durstige Mann), Manfred Hasenfus, Carl F. Peters (later in Neue Liebe) and Stefan Winczencz, that played in this time in a second band with name Hoffnung & Psyche. This tape was their only output, self-released by the band.
Label:
Not On Label – none
Format:
Cassette, C30
Country:
Germany
Released:
1981
Style:
New Wave,
Neue Deutsche Welle, Minimal Wave
Epitaphe
was a French Coldwave band formed
in Dijon by Ian Divine [Jean-Michel Corillion] (vocals), Marc The Him (guitar), Jean-Marc Deschamps (bass, also in Résistance), Patrick Ryon (drums) and Christophe Gibourg (keyboards)
and realated to bands like Norma Loy or Pavillon 7b. They only self released this 'Syndrome' 12" under the band's made up label Epitaphe Records limited to 1000 numbered copies.
Confronted by an unjustly neglected work of vinyl involving young New York musicians in the '80s, working in a highly collaborative manner and relegated to releasing their music on an obscure German label that operates out of a man's dresser closet, expectations will be high. Details at Eleven composed pieces either as a group, or accepted works from members Lin Culbertson and David Humphrey, written either singly or in pair, and the range of styles and sounds is impressive. During the beginning sections of "Attention," comments could be made about the lameness of the major labels and how what seems like perfectly acceptable commercial rock became indie fodder, part of an underground scene that in past times had been reserved for the truly weird. Other sections of the record are indeed much too far out for the majors, despite the fact that Frank Zappa did have some success placing similar instrumental passages into the teenage market. Since this is a New York band of the late '80s, it is no surprise either that there are passages of sheer, stark, and aggressive noise, as well as cleverly built-in escape valves from the very same. At times, ponderously dull rhythmic patterns settle over the proceedings as if an effort were being made to attract the clientele of the frat bar down the street. Liberated from actual commercial considerations and spurred on by the jumpy creativity of the scene around them, this band comes up with some intriguing scenarios: it's rock music, but hardly limited or handicapped by the genres' limitations -indeed, the previously mentioned rhythmic handicaps beg the question of whether this band is actually more uptight about such things then a so-called normal rock band would be. It might be the amount of concentration that is required by the sometimes-complex arrangements, allowing tunes such as the clever "Marketplace" to flirt with pop before bringing in what sounds like orchestrated air raid sirens. The dominant singing voice is Culbertson's, bringing up wanted or unwanted references to groups such as Jefferson Starship when in tune and well-recorded, and the punk swagger of Frightwig when out of tune and/or distorted. One of the best things that can be said about the group is that the vocal and instrumental numbers, though quite different in context, are equally interesting, in each case making one look forward to the other. [SOURCE: ALLMUSIC]
Label:
Dossier – ST 7522
Format:
Vinyl, LP, Album
Country:
UK, Europe & US
Released:
1986
Style:
Avantgarde, Experimental, Experimental Rock, Avant-Prog, No Wave
And so Yamazaki Maso steps away, ever so slowly, from his brutal sound world as Masonna and into the retro-psyche you always knew lurked inside him. Along with former Angel'in Heavy Syrup guitarist Toda Fusao, Christine 23 Onna pull a one off piece of Kosmische Musik somewhere between Maso's own Masonna and Space Machine projects, Amon Düül, Royal Trux circa 'Twin Infinitives' and The No-Neck Blues Band.
Free psychedelics at times subdued and, at others, brutal, permeate all of 'Space Age Batchelor Pad Psychedelic Music's tracks (the title a play on the classic Esquivel LP, the songs named in homage to films or OST conventions, pointing to the groups increasingly retro 'soundtracky' atmospherics).
Fusao, who played a stronger role in steering the creative ship on later releases, takes the back seat on this album, though her contributions show off her incredibly strong sense of classic 60's style riff logic without resorting to worn out tropes.
Great album by a great band. [SOURCE: RATE YOUR MUSIC]
Active since the mid of the eighties, japanese musician Yutaka Tanaka released his works under the name S·Core. Early works are all cassette albums he put out on his own cassette label Afflict Records, many of those were recorded via mail collaboration with many sound artists from international underground scene, such as Stefano Biasin (Italy), Telepherique and Trigger B (Germany), Merzbow (Japan), Al Margolis/If, Bwana (USA), Rafael Flores (Spain).
Bogart was Hubert Haverkamp. He started playing drums at the age of 6, and in the early 80s he was already a recognized experimental musician. In 1983 he founded Der Schwarze Kanal. In the same year he moved to Münster, where here he devoted himself not only to his work as a solo musician, but also became a percussionist and synthesizerist with Legion Fondor (1984-85). In 1984 he founded his cassette label Exit Tapes. In 1986 he made the music for the art project 'Nadeln
in Ketten'. In the same year he left Münster for Munich, and played with Mortification To The Flesh. Bogart founded the label BogArt-Records, which he continued to run from Berlin in 1988. He later opened the associated store in Moabit. He produced the record 'Sounds of a Sculpture' (with steel sculptures by Mac Whitney) for Bettina Schob and Arno Lenski. [SOURCE: Münsters Kulturpersonal der 80er]
Among the most expensive private-pressed Rock albums, emerging from early-70's British lands, 'Threads of Life' was an album recorded by four high school seniors at the Itchen College, these were Tim Ceasar on keyboard/lead vocals, Paul Fidlin and Ben Brooke on bass/guitars and Julian Ceasar on drums/synthesizers. Although recorded at the University Of Surrey, the first side was executed with the help of the Itchen College orchestra and contains cinematic Psychedelic Rock, based on arrangments for Rock band and orchestra, swirling around chamber orchestrations with full strings and dated psych-realmes rhythms with organ and guitar in evidence. The flipside contains a number of very short songs with psychedelic and poppy influences, very far from the slightly progressive vibes of the opening side. The best the band has to offer during these pieces are the well-arranged polyphonic harmonies and some cuts are based exclusively on a-capella vocal workouts.The material is melodic with organ, synth and piano accompanying the typical bass/guitar/drums output and includes some rural vibes as well.
Musicians’ statement, from back cover: "'Threads of Life’ evolved as a result of the group Alco being involved in a concert containing both rock and classical music. The idea of juxtaposing these different idioms was novel, but not as exiting as the decision to amalgamate the two in a new work to consist of three songs. Existing original material by the group was used as a base onto which additional material was superimposed for the orchestra, which here contains saxophone, six timpani, amplified harpsichord, and synthesister. Both the group and the orchestra are heard separately as well as together and climactic sections are contrasted with passages for solo display. Although the scoring of a work for rock group and orchestra is by no means a new idea, previous attempts have often resulted in the two forces remaining separate. We hope you will enjoy our combined attempt at such a synthesis." [SOURCE: RATE YOUR MUSIC]
Label:
Alco – ALC 530
Format:
Vinyl, LP, Album
Country:
UK
Released:
1972
Style:
Progressive Folk, Folk Rock,
Progressive Rock, Psychedelic Rock
Tracklist:
A1 Alco – When I Was A Child
A2 Alco – Rain Upon My Mind
A3 Alco – In My Dreams
B1 Alco – Waiting To Be Born
B2 Alco – Look At The Clouds
B3 Alco – Linda
B4 Alco – Hello Love
B5 Itchen College Barber Shoppers – The Cordbuster March
B6 Itchen College Barber Shoppers – Carry Me Back To Old Virginny
B7 Itchen College Barber Shoppers – De Animals
B8 Itchen College Barber Shoppers – Humble
B9 Itchen College Barber Shoppers – Bill Grogar'S Goat
B10 Itchen College Barber Shoppers – Ashmolian Band
