Hal McGee is an American experimental artist and producer, active since 1981. He is widely considered as one of the most important and seminal members of an early homemade cassettes musical movement in USA. Together with Debbie Jaffe, McGee operated legendary Cause And Effect cassette label and distribution, releasing such artists as Merzbow, Nurse With Wound, Controlled Bleeding, Robert Rich, If, Bwana, Algebra Suicide and others. In the mid 1980s McGee recorded numerous works as a member of Viscera, solo as Dog As Master, and in collaboration with If, Bwana and JABON. Although Hal McGee speaks highly of this release, most of it went by without much notice. Odd vocal text works and soundscapes between this very first Bwana Dog recording recorded through the mail. [SOURCE: RATE YOUR MUSIC]
Label: Sound Of Pig – SOP 19
Format:
Cassette, C60
Country: US
Released: 1986
Style: Industrial, Experimental
Tracklist:
A Dog As Master – Perfect And Silent, Plain And Insignificant
B1 Dog As Master & If, Bwana – Unintentional Laughter
B2 Dog As Master & If, Bwana – Dead, But He Won't Lie Down
B3 Dog As Master & If, Bwana – A Sense Of Exhilaration In The Absurd
B4 Dog As Master & If, Bwana – The Chinese Prestidigitator
B5 Dog As Master & If, Bwana – Sad Acrobats Remain Impassive
Cocks In Stained Satin
were at first a Hardcore-Punk band and later they changed into a Glam-Punk outfit, from the city of Frankfurt in West-Germany, active between 1983 and 1990.
Cast: Hebe (Vocals), Andi Social (Vocals & Bass), Zoppo (Guitars), and Bernd Hasenfus (Drums). This 7" single is a clutch of punk and thrash songs are delivered cleanly, tightly, and funnily. Sounds great. [SOURCE: MAXIMUM ROCKNROLL]
Label: Clorex Records – CLOREX 001, Clorex Records – C-001, Clorex Records – LA 001
Format:
Vinyl, 7", 45 RPM
Country: Germany
Released: 1984
Style: Punk
Tracklist:
Slamside
A1 Nasty To Me
A2 Dead Rat
A3 Rant´n´Rave
A4 Sometimes
Suffseite
B1 Vollsuff In The Sun
B2 FFM Punx
Tracklist:
The release numbers are listed as CLOREX 001 on the back cover, C-001 on the center labels, and LA 001 on the runout etchings.
This the final release of a project led by Steve Bjorklund of the seminal Chicago punk band, Strike Under. Following the breakup of Strike Under, Bjorklund released three EPs and one LP under the name Breaking Circus, with a revolving cast of backing musicians. This was a bonus 7" released with issue #4 of the punk zine, The Pope. By this point, the notoriously disagreeable Bjorklund had run out of backing musicians willing to play with him and made this 7'' with a drum machine and synthesizer, rather than band. But that's part of what makes this record great. The previous Breaking Circus recordings were significantly more guitar-oriented post-punk, whereas this is basically a minimal-wave record. Furthermore, the two tracks are not his own, but post-punk interpretations of two earlier punk songs: "Home of the Brave" by Naked Raygun and UK Subs' "Warhead." [SOURCE: YOUTUBE]
One of SST’s best releases. 'Mystery Spot' was Angst’s third album and easily their best (although their other releases, including their 83 EP on the Happy Squid label are still pretty cool). There had been some criticism levelled at Angst’s previous efforts in that the songs sounded very much the same. This album solved that problem to a large extent.
Angst were a three piece, based in San Francisco, with Michael Hursey on drums, Joseph Pope on bass/vocals and Jon. E. Risk on guitar/vocals. Side One is almost perfect with no dud tracks. "Outside My Window" introduces Pope’s wimpy but great introverted lyrics to the listener and the song comes together very well. Sort of folk/punk similar sounding to The Violent Femmes. "Back in January" has Risk out front and this one, sounds like a thrashy acoustic pounder. It moves real fast and true, a bit like Angst’s_ better stuff off their 86 album ‘Mending Wall’. "Its Mine" follows and comes together sounding real real fine, with nice harmonies raising the track to great status -it's almost like a deliberately slowed down tune that allows for countrified examination of difficult situations. The music on this album is very much stripped back and diverse.
"What’s the Difference" is like an eighties ode to the beatniks, about life on the road, totally slowed down into a more blues based exploration. This is a beautiful ‘ballad’, whose Kerouac observations should sound corny but don’t. A losers slant on philosophical ponderings that beg for answers to life’s tough questions. "Looking for a Reason" again lets Pope do the singing. It's a little like "Its Mine", once again getting into the philosophical side of reality about a world full of answers, but what the fuck was the question? Existential or what!!!
Angst were punk slanted, travelling slightly similar mind territory to what The Meat Puppets / Minutemen were doing, but totally unlike them at the same time. The slow blues/country crawl "Colors" closes off side one with Risk again asking the hard ones, acknowledging depression and angst in the only way he could.
The albums best cut "Mind Average" kicks off Side 2 and its a slightly poppy drugged out mind warp. The best song Pope ever penned. Everything blends together beautifully. His vocals sounding smooth and easy -overtopping a relatively simple song structure with beautiful word craft. A total classic. Risks’ "One Life (Out of Nine)" again works really well, giving the album a perfect rating but then the closing 4 tracks can’t keep up the pace and sound like the band starting to tread water. Not that the songs are bad, its’ just that they don’t come up to the same standard of the great songs that preceded them. Definately one of the best albums that SST ever released and a bonafide American classic. [SOURCE: RATE YOUR MUSIC]
Label: SST Records – SST 111
Format:
Vinyl, LP, Album
Country: US
Released: Nov 4, 1987
Style: Alternative Rock, Art Rock, Punk, Indie Rock, Post-Punk, Jangle Pop
Minimalism was the first live → ↑ → project. Bluntly labelled, it approached Minimalist music not as a transcendental practice, but as an unforgiving and undeveloping manifestation of static music. Approached with Duchampian zeal and Warholian perversity, it announced → ↑ →'s modus operandi as a quixotic meld of severe experimentalism and intellectual playfullness. Minimalism took the non-humanist route and revelled in the nothingness one could become by playing such music.
The Minimalism set was developed in the midst of Punk's early stirrings. History tends to portray Punk as yet another youthful, energetic, radical social phenomenon -endlessly remembered by withered 'I-was-there' media hustlers- but it was just as restrictive, jingoistic, dogmatic and anti-intellectual as everything it claimed to destroy and debunk. Its saving grace was its connection to performance art and a pretentious flaunting of politicised thought. In such an environment, Philip envisioned his take on Minimalist music as perfectly not fitting in to the dominant 3-chord brigade of wild-youth expressionism. The key influence -as with all → ↑ → projects- was the ideas of Marcel Duchamp and Andy Warhol. The Minimalism project is best viewed as Duchamp writing distilled slivers of pop music, with the resulting compositions performed by 4 clones of Andy Warhol. Repetition, anti-humanism, insularity and dilettantism governed all. For Philip in particular, the most entertaining recourse to radicalism was to be as normal and nothing as possible.
"On the whole, minimalism is a comparative concept -only taking in a productive meaning when related to a concept of 'maximalism' (i.e., the similarities to and differences between Philip Glass and Arnold Schoenberg). Our view of Minimalism is one based on the problematics of the History of Music, as the relationship between Glass and Schoenberg is first and foremost historical rather than musical. Minimalism looks at the ultimate basics of the History of the Western Diatonic Tonal Systems (the music grammar and language that we have all been brought up on), focusing on the effects of a single repeated melody; very slow volume fade-ins and fade-outs; single notes held for long periods of time; etc. Thus the music is not the result of experimenting with minimal procedeures to generate a stylistic type of music that can be categorized as "minimal". Our minimal music is more concerned with looking at basic harmony through a microscope. A simple way of describing it then is music in extreme close-up." [SOURCE: PHILIPBROPHY.COM]
Label: Innocent – none
Format:
Vinyl, 7", 33 ⅓ RPM, EP, White Label
Country: Australia
Released: Mar 3, 1980
Style: Minimal, Experimental
Tracklist:
A Only Quantity Counts
B One Note Song + Most Things Don't Really Matter
Notes:
There are no catalogue numbers for Innocent releases #1-5+7. This is the 7th label release in an edition of 300. According to official Innocent 1981 catalogue: "Two pieces dealing with Minimalism. Music in extreme close-up." Comes in a normal glossy sleeve. Label on A-side has arrows stamped, label on B-side stamped: Thirty Three & A Third R.P.M. Side:A. (sic!)
This release is also known as "Minimalism" because the music comes from the Minimalism project.
Earliest French punk compilation, it's the only release for most of the artists here. In 1978/1979, punk was still quite undefined, so you get a mixed bag of pretty much everything. '125 Grammes De 33 1/3 Tours' was released by Oxygène, a Paris independent label existing 1977 to 1981.
Their roster was largely rock and folk bands from the Paris and "Ile De France" region.
The best tracks are the angry rock'n'roll tracks (from Ecoute Maman, Electrochoc -influenced by British punk rock but also by British Pub Rock-, La Came aux Damélias and Le Fracas). Ruth Elleryi -alias of Thierry Müller- is psychedelic post-punk/wave with female vocals; Urgence and Décharge are charmingly bad gutter/garage polka punk; Peinture Fraîche and Strychnine -from Bordeaux- are boring standard boogie rock (the latter did much better later); and A 3 Dans Les WC is weird post-punk with a very obnoxious synth line.
Still a pretty fun and varied ride of some totally obscure early French punk. [SOURCE: RATE YOUR MUSIC]
Label: Oxygene – OXY 022
Format:
Vinyl, LP, Compilation
Country: France
Released: 1979
Style: New Wave, Punk, Punk Rock, Hard Rock, Post-Punk
Michel Chion was born in 1947 in Creil (France). After literary and musical studies, he began in 1970 to work for the ORTF (French Radio and Television Organization) Service De La Recherche, where he was assistant to Pierre Schaeffer at the Paris’ Conservatoire National De Musique, producer of broadcasts for the GRAM, and publications director for the INA-GRM, of which he was a member from 1971 to 1976. It was there that he met Robert Cahen, composer and video artist, and with whom he entered into a long-lasting friendship and collaboration.
Parallel to these activities, he composed musique concrète works in the studios of the GRAM including 'Requiem' (Grand Prix Du Disque 1978) and several concrète melodramas, a dramatic form which he inaugurated in 1972 with "Le Prisonnier Du Son" ("The Prisoner of Sound") and continued with "Tu" (1977-85), "La Tentation De Saint Antoine" (1984), and "Nuit Noire" (1985). Also worthy of mention are "La Roue, Cycle Du Quotidien" (1972-85), "24 Préludes à La Vie" ("24 Preludes to Life"), "Variations and Sonate" (1989-91), "Crayonnés Ferroviaires" (1992), "Credo Mambo" (1992) -realized at Musiques & Recherches (Ohain, Belgium)-, "Gloria" (1994) … all works for which he developed original compositional techniques.
He also works as a theoretician in a new area: the systematic study of audio-visual relationships, which he teaches at several centres (notably at Université de Paris III where he is an Associate Professor), and film schools (ESEC, Paris; DAVI, Lausanne) which has developed in a series of five books. Besides the twenty written publications translated into a dozen languages, he has also written on Pierre Henry, François Bayle, Charlie Chaplin, Jacques Tati, David Lynch, diverse subjects on music and film; he has published in French and international journals, and has contributed to numerous dictionaries and encyclopedias. He has also commenced work in film direction and production with the short film "Éponine" (Prix Jean-Vigo, prizes in Clermont-Ferrand, and in Montréal). In 1995, he began an audio-visual piece entitled "Messe De Terre" at the CICV Pierre Schaeffer in Montbéliard (France).
After having dedicated his "Guide Des Objets Sonores" to the ideas of Schaeffer, he continued with "Le Promeneur Écoutant, Essais d’Acoulogie", (Plume, éditeur, 1993), and finally with "Musique, Médias, Technologies" (Flammarion), a theory of sound based on language. In 1991 he published, with the support of Jérôme Noetinger, "L’Art Des Sons Fixés" in which he proposes, in order to properly designate this music, the return to the term ‘musique concrète’ in its initial non-causal sense. His redefinition insists upon the effects particular to the fixation of sound, a term which he proposes in place of recording.
Label: INA-GRM – n° 9114 ch
Series: Série Gramme
Format:
Vinyl, LP
Country: France
Released: 1983
Style: Electroacoustic, Acousmatic Music, Musique Concrète, Sound Collage
Tracklist:
La Ronde
(24:08)
A1 Pensées Du Matin
1:23
A2 Ariette 1:06
A3 L'été 2:09
A4 Playtime 3:15
A5 La Vierge Folle
3:11
A6 Les Mots
1:44
A7 Pour Lucienne 3:42
A8 Jardins Jadis 1:26
A9 Prière 3:45
A10 Pensées Du Soir
1:42
A11 La Machine À Passer Le Temps 5:22
On N'arrête Pas Le Regret
(12:47)
B1 Coup De Soleil Sur Un Vitrail 2:06
B2 Cris Et Babils 4:23
B3 Mondnacht 1:07
B4 Ronde "Notre Dame Du Regret" 1:06
B5 Cauchemar En Rose 3:40
B6 Tu Mouvement 9
11:50
Notes:
"La Ronde" suite in ten movements composed in 1982. Realized in INA-GRM studios (Summer 1982).
"La Machine à Passer Le Temps" composed in 1972.
"On N'Arrête Pas Le Regret" composed in 1975. Commissioned by INA-GRM and realized in INA-GRM studios.
"Tu" (9th Mouvement) composed in 1981. Commissioned by INA-GRM. With vocals by Ghedalia Tazartès.
"Série gramme: haute précision acoustique en pochette économique"
[Serie gramme: high acoustic fidelity packaged in an affordable sleeve]
Albert Porta was born in Barcelona in 1946, who adopted the nickname Zush from 1968 until 2001, when he became known as Evru, as he currently calls himself. Self-taught, he defines himself as ArtCienMist, that is, artist, scientist and mystic. He has been drawing since he was very young, but his first contact with the art world was through René Metras, a French gallery owner, in 1962, who encouraged him to continue creating. He establishes contacts and works with artists such as Jordi Galí and Silvia Gubern, among others, with whom he later forms the Grup del Maduixer. It is in 1964 when his work is shown for the first time to the public in the collective exhibition "Presencias De Nuestro Tiempo" ("Presences Of Our Time") at the René Metras Gallery.
The year 1968 is established as a transcendental point in his artistic career, since he decides to create Evrugo Mental State, accompanied by his own communication code and change his name to Zush. During this period his work stands out for a psychedelic aesthetic created by means of phosphorescent pigments and a great formal anarchy, understanding his works as the construction of a personal mythology, something applicable to a great part of his creation. Thanks to several scholarships he studies Holography applied to Art at the M.I.T. in Boston, something that is reflected in his works from the mid 80's onwards, integrating technology. Exhibitions in renowned venues such as Documenta in Kassel in 1977, the Guggenheim in New York in 1980 or the Pompidou in Paris in 1989 stand out.
In 2001, during his retrospective organized by MACBA, Zush is renamed Evru. It is at this moment when the concept of ArtCienMist appears, which defines his new artistic figure. His long career to date has led to major museums dedicating retrospectives to him, such as the one presented in 2007 in different museums in China, such as the Today Art Museum in Beijing and the MoMA Duo Lun in Shanghai. In addition to having exhibited in many important museums, he has also received several awards. Examples are the Premio Nacional de Grabado in 1997, the Premio Laus in 1999, the Premi Ciutat de Barcelona in 2000 or the Premi ACCA de la Crítica d'Art in 2003.
In 1989 he releases the LP 'Evrugo Mental State' composed by the artist Tres from the commission of Zush himself in 1982. Tres (Three) was a multidisciplinary artist and sound researcher (Barcelona, 1956 - Premià de Dalt, 2016), named so himself by the day he was born and never revealed his real name. Very appreciated in the artistic community for his generous and positive attitude, he always remained faithful to his creative search, knowing that he moved in a minority and nothing commercial. Known for his ingenious works on silence, he would be part of the Klamm group during the eighties. Among its most important arguments stand out truths such as "in this society verbally incontinent, there are no spaces for silence". That is why he created spaces and situations that made possible to perceive it so that it was a path of interior search. In his artistic career he cultivated several disciplines such as painting, sculpture, performances and music. [SOURCE: FUNDACION SUÑOL]
Label: Grabaciones Accidentales – 4GA-0361
Format:
Vinyl, LP
Country: Spain
Released: 1989
Style: Alternative Rock, New Wave, Avantgarde, Art Rock, Experimental Rock
Tracklist:
A1 Evrugo Mental State National Introelectric Anthem 5:59
