Orior was an obscure British duo formed by Jeff Sharp a.k.a. Clip on synthesizer, harmonies, mixing, treatments and guitar, and Tom Barwood, active between 1979 and 1983. They only released the 'Elevation' 7" in 1979 on the London-based Crystal Groove label, before sinking into oblivion. They opted for a hazy and thick Ambient / Space Music synth sound. [SOURCE: ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ELECTRONIC MUSIC]
Originally from the Austin scene that spawned such kindred spirits as the Butthole Surfers and Scratch Acid, this NYC trio crafts a so(m)ber mixture of Brit gloom (Joy Division, Bauhaus) and New York guitar screech (Sonic Youth, Swans). While its work has been spotty, Nice Strong Arm has never been less than intriguing.
'Cloud Machine' pairs two new studio tracks (including a bright, metallic funk instrumental called “Cop Show”) with two songs cut live at CBGB.
The title track is absolutely jaw-dropping, echoing Sonic Youth's 'Sister' / 'Daydream Nation'-era deathmatch of pop against noize. The pulverisingly genius riff is straight out of air guitar heaven, like what would happen if J Mascis kidnapped Eddie Van Halen's soul and sold it for ransom to Dick Dale. The strangely beautiful chorus ("There is a cloud machine hanging over our heads") is delivered so magically, so perfectly, that you will never want to forget it or comprehend it. These guys probably listened to a lot of Hüsker Dü, at least that's what is in the melody department. Back to the guitar part: it's like a 3-D mashup of Jimi Hendrix's in "Spanish Castle Magic" with Bailter Space's in "Now I Will Live" and Swervedriver's in "Blowin' Cool," and it comes dangerously close to tearing apart the galaxy's space-time continuum, so it's probably best to close your door before listening. At first it almost sounds like improvised jazz noodling, but it comes together in your head as a serpentine riff the more you listen to it, and it acts as a magic carpet underneath the vocals, the two carrying each other forward with effortless propulsive force. And the drums are recorded in gorgeous surround sound, pulsating laterally with great depth. The song is just a tour de force in all ways, and you can tell the band knew it and wanted to spend a lot of time recording it just right, contrary to the quickie-is-cool attitude of most noise rockers.
"Cop Show" is an instrumental surf-thrash scorcher that probably made Steve Vai cry into his Count Chocula. The two live tracks sound astonishingly similar to NSA's labelmates Live Skull and early Swans, but with an even darker undertow, plus legitimately singable choruses.
This EP should be hunted down by fans of stuff like Poem Rocket, Bailter Space, Band Of Susans, Unwound, and of course Sonic Youth. To call it mere "noise rock" is selling it short, but this is far more jagged than "noise pop," so one can't call it that. Tommy Victor of Prong was the engineer on the two live tracks. [SOURCE: RATE YOUR MUSIC]
Label: Homestead Records – HMS147-1
Format:
Vinyl, EP, 12", 45 RPM
Country: US
Released: 1989
Style: Alternative Rock, Post Rock, Indie Rock, Noise Rock
Tracklist:
A1 Cloud Machine
A2 Cop Show
B1 Faucet Head
B2 Life Of The Party
Notes:
Side A recorded and Mixed in May 1989 at Baby Monster Studios, NYC.
Mittagspause was an early German (post-)punk band with Janie Jones aka Peter Hein on the vocals. Later he became the frontman of the early Fehlfarben. Some tracks of Mittagspause appeared later in other versions on records by Fehlfarben ("Militürk", "Herrenreiter", "Ernstfall"). This album is a live recording from a 1979 concert in Wuppertal. Recording quality is solid, a little thin maybe, same for the music. It all rather sounds like rehearsal recordings.
Besides the title of this album (which means "Punks Makes a Fat Ass"), the interesting thing here are the many cover versions of early German new wave/punk classics, like S.Y.P.H.'s "Zurück Zum Beton" and "Industriemädchen" or Male's "Zensur Zensur" and "Testbild". There also is a cover of Sham 69's "If the Kids Are United" and of a German 1960s classic, "Marmor, Stein und Eisen Bricht". [SOURCE: RATE YOUR MUSIC]
Label: Rondo – FLOT 2
Format:
Vinyl, LP, Album
Country: Germany
Released: Jan 1982
Style: Ska, Punk, New Wave, Post-Punk, Neue Deutsche Welle,
Ska Punk
Tracklist:
A1 1979 - Deutschland
A2 Überblick
A3 Militürk 1
A4 Zurück Zum Beton
A5 Zensur & Zensur
A6 Testbild
A7 Ernstfall
A8 Industrie-Mädchen
A9 Herrenreiter
B1 Marmor Stein Und Eisen Bricht
B2 Innenstadtfront
B3 In Der Tat
B4 Der Lange Weg Nach Derendorf
B5 Mordernes Entertainment
B6 When The Kids Are United
B7 X-9200
B8 Militürk 2
Notes:
Live in Wuppertal, Börse (10 Nov 1979)
The tracklisting on the label of the record is slighly incorrect, omitting B3 and placing it after B6.
Also track B5 is called "Mordernes Entertainment" (sic!) on the backcover and "Instrumental-Extro" on the label.
Lucky Sperms was a collaboration between Mike Watt of fIREHOSE and Sonic Youth. They recorded their only single in January of 1987, "Walking the Cow" backed with "Tomorrow Never Knows/Glass Onion". In 1986 Watt collaborated with Sonic Youth appearing on the Ciccone Youth album and single. The Lucky Sperms single sounds like they wanted to recreate that magic but were unsure what songs to cut, so they came up with these two. Although none of the band member's names are on the cover art which is created by Raymond Pettibon, who did many of the Minutemen's covers and 'Goo' by Sonic Youth, it sends a giant clue of who the artists on the wax are.
Watt takes the lead on vocal, or as former Minutemen calls it "spiel", on both tracks. The cover of Daniel Johnston's classic "Walking the Cow" is a little faster than his version on fIREHOSE's 1991 album 'Flyin' the Flannel' but has a simplicity to it that is reminiscent of Johnston's original. The arrangement he would go on later to create on the album version four years later is a bit stronger. This sounds like the demo version of that song. On this track he is backed only by Steve Shelley on drums. Watt must be one of the first artist's outside of Austin to cover Johnston with his version of "Bermuda" appearing on '3-Way Tie for Last' via the telephone in 1985.
"Tomorrow Never Knows/Glass Onion" is a cover of the Lennon/McCartney song and is a typical B-side throw-away track. Watt's spiel is distorted and a bit demonic. The structure of the song hardly resembles the original; which is not a bad thing. Sonic Youth backs him in their typical fashion but apparently Thurston does nothing on the track be cause his credit is nada. This is one of the stranger covers of the song, interesting but not at all ground breaking. [SOURCE: RATE YOUR MUSIC]
Kraft Durch Freude
(also known as
KdF) were a short-lived Swiss punk/power pop outfit formed in
1979 in Zürich and
disbanded
in 1980. Members
were Rudolph Dietrich (guitar, vocals,
also in bands such Blue China, Expo, Kleenex, Mutterfreuden, Nasal Boys and Putsch), Heinrich Heinricht (bass, vocals,
also in Captain Henry, Mother's Ruin and Mutterfreuden) and Beat Schlatter (drums, member of Kleenex in 1981-82 and Sperma -swiss punk rock band from Zürich active from 1977/78 to 1980- and also a comedian).
Thomas Wydler (member of bands such Die Gesunden, Die Haut, Die UnbekanntenorNick Cave & The Bad Seeds) was briefly the drummer of the band in 1980. They released two records, the 'I've Gotta Whole Lotta Love / I Don't Mind'
7",
and the 'Wir Bleiben Kameraden' 12'', both on the independent Swiss label Off Course.
Label: Off Course Records – FFC/RDS 7907
Format:
Vinyl, 12", Mini-Album
Country: Switzerland
Released: 1979
Style: Punk, Punk Rock, Power Pop
Tracklist:
A1 What I Like
2:05
A2 You've Done It
2:30
A3 '68-Zombies
2:45
A4 Teenage On Top
1:55
B1 I Want Some More
2:03
B2 Berlin-Wall
2:25
B3 If The Women Rules The World I Kill Myself
2:20
Jackdaw With Crowbar is an English multi-media indie band from Leamington Spa. The band was formed in 1985, but consolidated in 1987, when signed to Ron Johnson Records, until it went bust. Musically Jackdaw With Crowbar are practically impossible to pin down to any genre though 'Hot Air' generally exudes post-punk atmosphere. “Travesty of C(ro)W” opening the album indeed resembles some avant-garde musical imitation of crowing. The rest of the album is mostly some experimental dubs -sometimes bluesy, sometimes jazzy and sometimes both. “Sultan of Pickle, Son of Bran” is an excellent post-punk song full of jangling guitars and stylized to the classical rock ‘n’ roll. And the album as a whole creates a rather pleasant impression of attempting to transfer punk rock to the more artful musical territory. [SOURCE: RATE YOUR MUSIC]
International Mail-Music Group was a single-album project formed by
Yutaka Tanaka, that originally began his musical activity as a member of Schematic Diagram in 1982 and formed S.Core in 1985 along with Afflict Records; Rafael Flores, spanish composer, sound and video artist active since the early 1980s; Hubert Haverkamp, drummer and Percussionist in rock and wave bands
and electronic musician in experimental projects, such Bogart, and founder of label Bog-Art; and
Al Margolis, the man behind If, Bwana and founder of Sound Of Pig.
Label: El Consumo Del Miedo – none, Sound Of Pig – none, Afflict Records – none, Bog-Art – none
Formed by Rose Carlotti (b. Rosemarie DeFreitas, 16 December 1963, Barbados; guitar, vocals) and Stephen Ward (b. 19 April 1963, Chelmsford, Essex, England; guitar, vocals) from an idea conceived at college in Birmingham and developed in Reading in 1986, when Rose’s sister, Rachael (b. 25 May 1966, Oxfordshire, England; bass, vocals), and Mark Side (b. 24 June 1969, Oxfordshire, England; drums) completed the line-up. Within a year The Heart Throbs had made inroads towards infamy, supporting The Jesus And Mary Chain on tour and releasing ‘Bang’ in a controversial ‘car crash’ record sleeve. [SOURCE: ALLMUSIC]
La Gran Curva was a band from Madrid part of the so-called «sinister wave» (darkwave) scene and later synth pop, founded in 1984 and dissolved in 1987.
La Gran Curva takes its name from the Talking Heads song "The Great Curve", from their album 'Remain in Light'. The band was formed by Belén L. Celada, Juan José Suárez and Julián Sanz Escalona. Produced by Servando Carballar, leader of Aviador Dro, they released all their records in DRO, and recorded in the Duplimatic studio in Madrid.
After its dissolution Juan José Suárez joined Lunes de Hierro, parallel band of Servando Carballar. Julián Sanz Escalona, from groups such as La Fundación and Mar Otra Vez, would later form Erizonte. [SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA]
After the brief adventure as Forats Naturals and before the convocation of the City Council of Palma for the I Pop-Rock Competition, Pere Plá and Mané Capilla would unite with Biel Pons to form one of the most influential bands of Mallorcan Pop-Rock: Furnish Time. In the initial formation were Pere Plá (voice and guitar), Biel Pons (bass and keyboards), Mane Capilla (drums), Pep Vilariño (guitar) and Juan Ga (synthesizer). In November of 1983 they entered the Maller studios under the production of Toni Fernández to record 'The Joy Of The Others', a three songs EP edited by the Blau label.
In 1985 they are hired by the Madrid City Council to perform at the San Isidro festivities with The Smiths. It was their great opportunity and there they were on May 18, 1985 before a crowd that flooded the Paseo de Camoens de Madrid (200,000-300,000 people according to sources). Their second record was edited by Producciones Twins label at the beginning of 1986. The album, with a cover by Miquel Barceló, had to be largely self-financed and had a very limited circulation and a poor distribution. Although they were at their best and had reached maturity as musicians, circumstances did not accompany them and they did not have the promotion they deserved. Furnish Time ended up dissolving at the end of 1987. [SOURCE: GRUPOS NACIONALES NUEVA OLA 80]
Label: Producciones Twins – T 2506
Format:
Vinyl, 12", Mini-Album, 33 ⅓ RPM
Country: Spain
Released: 1986
Style: New Wave, Goth Rock, Post-Punk
Tracklist:
A1 Azizia
A2 Juegos De La Lluvia
A3 Cena Fria
B1 Que Hacer Por Las Mañanas Cuando Al Despertar Se Es Feliz?
