Coventry Indie band Furious Apples based around the enigmatic Greg Crabb, mainstay of the Coventry Music Scene in the mid 80’s (he also ran the Pilgrim Club disco). Along with his brother Michael, they were heavy giggers and knew how to promote themselves. Members came and went. In Spring 1983, The Furious Apples vocalist Greg Crabb recruited Robin Hill (Pink Umbrellas) on drums, John Westacott (ex-Urge) on bass and Raphael Moore on guitar, along with Mike Crabb, and Abbe Collins on keyboards to record a 7″ vinyl single -'Engineering b/w Belladonna'-, released in October 1983 recorded at 8 track Cabin Studio in Coventry. This was the second release on the Sonar record label and Paul Sampson engineered and produced both songs. [SOURCE: SONAR RECORDS]
Label: Sonar Records – SON 2
Format:
Vinyl, 7", 45 RPM
Country: UK
Released: 1983
Style: New Wave, Indie Rock, Jangle Pop, Post-Punk
Equal Local was a post-punk instrumental ensemble, drawing on jazz and electronic influences, formed by Dean Richards (electric guitar) and Philip Jackson (synthesizer, drum programming) after their departure from Whirlywirld in 1979. Other members of the band were Bryce Perrin(acoustic bass -and later in Hot Half Hour),
Ian Cox (sax, and later in band such → ↑ →, Essendon Airport, Hot Half Hour and one of the original members of I'm Talking), Mick Hauser (sax, also in Hot Half Hour) and Melissa Webb (synthesizer, piano, and later in David Chesworth Ensemble). The record was produced by Chris Wyatt and Equal Local. They released this 12'', the cassette 'How Did We Miss These?' in 1982 in the Rash (Decisions) label, and the 'Madagascar' 12" EP in the Missing Link label in 1981.
Label: Powderworks – POWT 0067, Missing Link – POWT 0067
Format:
Vinyl, 12"
Country: Australia
Released: 1982
Style: New Wave, Synth-pop, Minimal, Avantgarde, Zolo
Die Form is the primary project of the French electronic musician and multimedia artist Philippe Fichot. He began his own record label, Bain Total, in 1977 and began recording a number of experimental cassette releases as Die Form, starting with 'Die Form 1' in 1977, with the first Die Form vinyl release ('Die Puppe') appearing in 1982. Whilst the project was still in its infancy, the underlying concepts were still evident -a combination of esoteric electronic experiments with an underlying theme of erotism, death and other 'taboo' subjects, apparent in both the music and the album artwork, which Philippe also produces.
Active since the mid-'60s, synthesizer experimentalist and musique concrète producer Asmus Tietchens has been a major influence on several generations of avant-garde electronic musicians and sound artists. Heavily inspired by Karlheinz Stockhausen, he has pursued "absolute music" through rigid formal exercises. His music is often harsh, alien, and abstract, but he's also recorded several albums of strangely playful material, including a handful of early-'80s Sky Records releases as well as later works as Hematic Sunsets. In addition to releasing over 100 recordings (including collaborations with Merzbow, Vidna Obmana, and Thomas Köner), Tietchens has taught acoustics at Hamburg universities since 1990, and he has written liner notes for dozens of albums released by the Bureau B label, particularly reissues of Cluster-related albums.
In this 'Face To Face Vol. 1' Die Form's piece is an erratic, yet nicely structured piece of experimental electronic. Tietchens offers up a reliably industrial, ambient piece worthy of his better output. The album was released in 1988 in Odd Size, a French label specialising in experimental and industrial music, run by Laurent Perrier from his Paris Record shop from 1987 to 1997. [SOURCES: WIKIPEDIA - ALLMUSIC - RATE YOUR MUSIC]
Label: Odd Size – OS 04
Format:
Vinyl, LP, Limited Edition
Country: France
Released: 1988
Style: Electro, Ambient, Industrial, Dark Ambient
Tracklist:
Animal Instinct (Total Version)
A1 Die Form – Untitled
A2 Die Form – Untitled
A3 Die Form – Untitled
A4 Die Form – Untitled
Mysterien Des Hafens
B1 Asmus Tietchens – Bubendey Notturno
B2 Asmus Tietchens – Ritual Auf Der Halde
Notes:
Die Form: Recorded at B.T.D.F. Studio. Direct recording to master from samplers and micro composers.
Le morceau intégral a été exécuté par l'action F/29, au Rex Club à Paris, sur le film Animal Instinct, qui depuis a été coupé et remonté en plusieurs unités.
Asmus Tietchens: Aufgenommen in den Audiplex Studios, Hamburg.
Limited
One of the original forefathers in the industrial boom of the 1980s, Chrome's amalgam of distorted guitars and vocals, samples from TV, and a raw punk aesthetic (inspired by The Stooges) became much more popular in the early '90s than it ever was while the band was around in the '70s and '80s. Although active for only six years, Chrome left behind a huge discography, including nine full LPs (several of which were released posthumously) and numerous EPs and singles.
Chrome were formed in San Francisco around 1977 by vocalist/drummer Damon Edge, vocalist/guitarist Mike Low, guitarist John Lambdin, and bassist Garry Spain; each played other instruments as well, including tape machines, electric violin, and Moog. Chrome's sound wasn't quite fully formed by the time of their first album, 'The Visitation'; it's surprisingly poppy with few hints of what was to come, though an obsession with science fiction made its debut. Second album 'Alien Soundtracks' was the true genesis for Chrome, thanks in part to new member Helios Creed, who joined after the departure of Low.
Helios Creed began a successful solo career in 1985, while Damon Edge continued the Chrome name sporadically over the next ten years, until he died in 1995. This 10" marked the return of Helios Creed under the Chrome-banner, effectively in control after Damon Edge's death. [SOURCE: ALLMUSIC]
Label: Man's Ruin Records – mr-035, Man's Ruin Records – MR-035-CHROME
Bogshed formed in Hebden Bridge, Yorkshire, England in 1985, initially as The Amazing Roy North Penis Band, and comprised Phil Hartley (vocals), Mike Bryson (bass), Mark McQuaid (guitar) and Tristan King (drums).
The Membranes' John Robb signed them up to his Vinyl Drip label, releasing the classic debut EP 'Let Them Eat Bogshed', before they moved on to Shelfish Records.
Championed by John Peel, they recorded 5 sessions for his radio show between 1985 and 1987, and gained regular airplay. The uncompromising mix of angular guitar-led tunes and Hartley's energetic vocals (his stated aim was to sing like Doris Day!) meant that Peel's listeners either loved Bogshed or found them unpalatable. After two superb LPs and a string of great singles, Bogshed called it a day, the last single ('Stop Revolving') never making it out of the warehouse.
Hartley popped up late in 1988 with a solo Peel Session, but no releases were forthcoming. King went on to play with Jackdaw With Crowbar and later A Witness, while Mike Bryson, who was responsible for the sleeve artwork is now cartoonist/illustrator.
Abrupt bass lines and rhythmic tunes, nervous and emotional vocals -that’s the definite sound of 'Brutal'. What one may expect from the title “Old Dog New Dance”? In fact it’s a rock ‘n’ roll made in derisive post-punk style. Or what about “No To Lemon Mash”? It sounds as some jocularly culinary rebellion. 'Brutal' is quite an impressive collection of punk rock in its latter day variety. [SOURCE: RATE YOUR MUSIC]
Alexander Von Borsig is Alexander Hacke, active since he was 13 years old. Former member of P1/E, Blässe, Sentimentale Jugend, Mekanik Destruektiw Komandoe, Sprung Aus Den Wolken and Lustige Geräusche, Borsig was one of the early members of Einstürzende Neubauten. Essentially, this 'S.J.' is what the earliest Tuxedomoon material would have sounded like if there wasn't as much craft and idiosyncrasy put into it. [SOURCE: RATE YOUR MUSIC]
Label: Das Cassetten Combinat – 810111, Das Cassetten Combinat – 0111, Das Cassetten Combinat – 81021
Format:
Cassette, C20
Country: Germany
Released: 1981
Style: New Wave, Minimal, Minimal Synth, Industrial, Post-Punk, Synth-pop
Tracklist:
A1 Tote Kammer 1:42
A2 Maschinen 2:42
A3 10.5. 1:37
A4 Hiroshima 2:03
B1 Pour Mon Bibi 2:34
B2 Angst 1:53
B3 Ghetto 1:56
B4 Tu Mir Weh 1:40
B5 Kleine Nachtmusik 0:55
Notes:
This release also lists "Sentimentale Jugend" on the spine, which is supposedly the title of this cassette. It is ONLY referred to as "Borsig Werke" in the catalog of the label. The catalog also lists the logical catalog numer 81021 for this release. This catalog number is not found on the cassette itself.
The first print run included a little booklet insert with drawings and text which was packaged in a plastic bag and cassette has green/yellow or white labels. Later run has no booklet and no label on cassette.
The tracks B4 and B5 are not listed on the cover, but in the booklet.
On cold autumn evenings of Milan in 1981 met for the first time Nino La Loggia and Giacomo Spazio. Both were regulars of the Bar Concordia, one of the few meeting places for the post punk generation. Nino with Mark Philopat had given birth to the HCN, one of the pioneering punk bands of the peninsula. Giacomo instead was a performance artist, interested in graphics and was looking for a new form of painting that was innovative and provocative. When the two met sparked. The two had the same passion for music: Kraftwerk, Joy Division, DAF and the whole new scene of proto-electronic wave and together they decided to start the musical project called 2+2=5, a tribute to Orwellian dystopia. Shortly after entered the band Cha Cha Hagiwara, already a keyboard player in Jeunesse d'Ivoire, enriching the band's raw sound with sonority which we can now define analog. The slouching combination of coldwave and dream-pop of 2+2=5 may sound derivative and outdated, their music duplicating 'Faith'-era Cure ("Haiku"), The Wake's anemic romanticism ("So 11"), and Sad Lovers & Giants's somber dreaminess ("Rayographie"). [SOURCE: RATE YOUR MUSIC]
Label: Materiali Sonori – none, U.T. Comunicazioni – UT 01
The Manchester Musicians' Collective Of West Didsbury were responsible for this album of 1980 bands, all detailed in the Fanzine styled enclosed booklet printed by the Moss Side Community Press.
This is where we enter the territory of the Unknown, the Rare and Precious, something pretty untouchable and unreachable.
It's a glimpse of the past in a moment gone forever, when all these bands clutched at the Brass Ring and all of them were unable to hold on to it though Dislocation Dance made the Indie chart a year later and The Enigma were called the "best band in Manchester".
"Available as an 8 track 12 inch" read an advert for The Hoax, "as soon as we've enough money available" or "performance are going to go places and in a big way".
It's a time capsule of what could have been because some of this stuff is as good as what was going down in the South. It was,after all, issued at a time when the Joy Division were about to metamorphosise into New Order, when Mick Hucknall was a Frantic Elevator and before The Smiths took hold. [SOURCE: RATE YOUR MUSIC]
Label: MMC Records – MMC 1
Format:
Vinyl, LP, Compilation
Country: UK
Released: 1980
Style: New Wave, Power Pop, Punk, Minimal, Post-Punk
Weimar Gesang is an Italian darkwave/minimal synth band.
The band consisted of four members:
Donato Santarcangeli, Fabio Magistrali, Giuseppe Tonolini, and Paolo Mauri,
a few of which went on to play in various other Italian bands over the years.
Recommended heavily for fans of first The Cure / New Order and Victrola.
This forgotten album from 1983 started with "Master/Slave", a vibrant and delightful art-punk-funk-jazz exercise that had one foot in the work of the Art Bears, and the other in the work of Captain Beefheart, and without forgetting no-wavers such as Blurt. Ditto for the minimal spastic discordance of "Feet First", which also maintained a degree of elegance. Then, the rhythmic chaos of "New Condition" veered even more into no-wave, into the kind of perverse groove that Teenage Jesus & The Jerks or DNA manage to get across. In the meantime, tracks such as "Pollyanna" and "Mysteries Of The Organism" returned to a kind of disjointed but measured elegance, whereas the amateurish sabotage of "Placebo #1" and "Fast-Acting Placebo" revisited the spirit of early Half Japanese. Side two followed along these lines, with highlights such as "Boyce Life" and "They Can't Get It" approaching an ever more severe sound. [SOURCE: RATE YOUR MUSIC]
Label: Rift – RIFT 6
Format:
Vinyl, LP, Album
Country: US
Released: 1983
Style: Free Jazz, No Wave, Avantgarde, Avant-Prog, Zolo
Tracklist:
A1 Master / Slave
A2 Battle Of Algiers
A3 Feet First
A4 New Condition
A5 Placebo #1
A6 Alley Oops
A7 Pollyanna
A8 Mysteries Of The Organism
A9 Fast-Acting Placebo
B1 Lavaplatos
B2 A Tree Grows In Managua
B3 Boyce Life
B4 Wheat
B5 New Song (Old Story)
B6 Must Go
B7 They Can't Get It
B8 Placebo #3
Notes:
Tracks A1, A2, A6, A7, B3 & B4 recorded at OAO Studio, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Tracks A3, A8, B1, B2, B5 & B7 recorded at Sunrise Studio, Kirchberg, Switzerland.
Tracks A4, A5, A8, B6 & B8 recorded live in New York, West Germany, Switzerland and Czechoslovakia.
