Various – 1980: The First Fifteen Minutes [7''] (1979, Neutron Records)

Neutron Records was founded in Sheffield in 1978 by Stephen Singleton, Mark White and David Sydenham to release work coming from the burgeoning Sheffield electronic music scene. In its anarchic beginning, the label was conceived as fiercely independent, with as strong an emphasis on the visual aspects as the audio, regarding the material as manifestos focused on what they saw as the subversive principles of the postmodern and anti-art. Although fairly obscure (as the Sheffield underground scene at the time did not get much national or international notice) Vice Versa still succeeded in gaining public attention with their own blend of electronic pop tendencies, largely inspired by the fellow Sheffield group, Cabaret Voltaire. 

Neutron releases where seen as sharply intelligent statements for the new decade, beginning with Vice Versa's 'Music 4' (7" EP, NT001), a piece of electronic pop linked with cut-up statements on social decadence which went on to win a famous 'single of the week' line in NME, much to the surprise of the group. Two further releases, even more ambitious: a set of prints with a manifesto (NT002), and then the semi-legendary '1980: The First Fifteen Minutes' (7" EP, NT003), complete with six-sided fold out cover (which featured, alongside Vice Versa, three other Sheffield groups: Clock DVA, The Stunt Kites and I'm So Hollow.) Each band contributed one track each for what would be their first vinyl appearance. While the compilation received a great deal of critical acclaim, this wasn't enough to assuage the frustration with the lack of promotion which then led to Neutron singing a distribution deal with the major marketing facility Phonogram, in 1980.

 

 

Label: Neutron Records – NT 003 

Format: Vinyl, 7", 33 ⅓ RPM 

Country: UK 

Released: 1979 

Style: New Wave, Punk, Synth-pop, Experimental, Post-Punk, Synth Punk, Minimal Synth

 

Tracklist:

A1 ClockDVA – Brigade 3:17 

A2 The Stunt Kites – Beautiful People 2:14 

B1 Vice Versa – Genetic Warfare 3:34 

B2 I'm So Hollow – I Don't Know 3:43 

 

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Ralph Lundsten And The Andromeda All Stars – Discophrenia [LP] (1978, Harvest)

It's probably the cover that misled to think that this would be a sub-par Moog disco LP, filled with synthetic instrumental versions of "Shake Your Groove Thing", etc. Even though everything else heard from Ralph Lundsten has been adequate-to-genius avant-electronic compositions, just pegged this as a disco cash-in. Maybe it is. But it falls more on the "funk" side of disco -the kind of late 70s sanitary funk that served as the backdrop to acts like Grace Jones, early rap, or the Eno/Byrne sound. Funk that went to modern Africa on an Anthropology graduate student fact-finding mission, but found that bouncing between recording studios in Nairobi was good enough. Funk that has a PhD at the mixing board. Funk by white guys with afros. Lundsten pins those steady, repetitive bass-led grooves under mildly entertaining spacey electronic improvisations with jazz fusion indicators. A little like Miles Davis at his 70s grooviest, toned way down into something much more commercially palatable. You know -disco funk for horny, lovesick robots. So... the cover is accurate after all. [SOURCE: RATE YOUR MUSIC]

 

 

Label: Harvest – 7C 062-35537 

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album 

Country: Sweden 

Released: 1978 

Style: Disco 

 

Tracklist:

A1 Andromedian Nights 2:46 

A2 Discophrenia 7:10 

A3 Luna Lolita 3:20 

A4 Cat Nymphony 3:56 

B1 Robot Amoroso 5:50 

B2 Spring Fever 6:10 

B3 The Celestial Sphinx 4:07 

 

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Zajártalom – Áldozati Énekek / Live [Cass] (1996, Not On Label)

 

Zajártalom was an experimental noise band from Budapest, Hungary. Active period 1986-1988, with one release. “Our band was founded in the fall of 1986. Our first concert took place on December 6, 1986 in Petöfi Csarnok, Budapest. We want to stage a new attempt in our music. We’re trying to perform comprehensive noise music that embraces all environmental sound (noise) effects. This is not industrial music! The sound effects are basic, this is an instrumental production. Process music that is born on stage and forms a coherent whole together with background sounds. Each of our concerts are based on different songs, which is why we always make a concert that can only be heard once. It's difficult to make sense of it, but in fact there is no need to. It is impossible to listen to the ever-changing soundtrack and music at the same time. Our goal is for the listener to perceive what is happening on stage with his senses, surrender himself to sound effects, let his mind free, because these noises are everyday, consciousness sound effects in an amplified form. Congested feelings that even in their unity, they can manifest themselves in many ways... The band broke up in early 1988…” (Karel, Második Látás fanzine 1990). Members: Kalóczkai Attila (voice ), Tunner János (guitar ), Veress János (guitar ), Apró Imre (bass ) and Karel (drums, noise). [SOURCE: YOUTUBE]

 

 

Label: Not On Label (Zajártalom Self-Released) – none 

Format: Cassette, Album 

Country: Hungary 

Released: 1996 

Style: Alternative Rock, Noise 

 

Tracklist:

A1 Halott Lelkének Kisérete 

A2 Fények 

A3 Jegyzet 

A4 Engem Hívnak Úgy! 

A5 R.B. 

A6 Világ Vége 

A7 Át Akar menni A Zebrán 

A8 Harc Az Életért 

A9 Utolsó Áldozat 

B1 Live 

 

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Yen Pox – Deliver [7''] (1995, Drone Records)

 

Nuclear-nightmarish-ambient darkness in the vein of Lustmord, Thomas Koner and Atomine Elektrine. The duo (Michael J.V. Hensley and Steve Hall) also founded two others amazing "deep listening" projects under the name Blood Box and Veil of Secrecy. [SOURCE: PROG ARCHIVES]

 

 

Label: Drone Records – DR-15 

Format: Vinyl, 7", 33 ⅓ RPM

Country: Germany 

Released: Dec 1995 

Style: Dark Ambient, Drone 

 

Tracklist:

A Deliver 8:48 

B Remove 8:51 

 

Notes:  

First edition (1995), limited to 250 hand-numbered copies, packaged in handmade silk-screened covers.

Second edition (1998), limited to 300 copies on black vinyl in black-on-red printed sleeves.

 

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The Walking Floors – No Next Time [7''] (1981, My Death Telephone Records)

The Walking Floors were a Post Punk DIY band all from around Basingstoke in Hampshire, UK. The band began life as The Brothers K in 1978, but changed to The Walking Floors with a change to Ian Sturgess on bass in 1979. Drummer Mike Barnes and Ian Sturgess also worked with The Lemon Kittens during 1979-1980, appearing on the latter's 'Cake Beast' EP and providing back-up at a number of memorable live appearances (a spectacularly mismatched support slot with Killing Joke has entered music folklore). The Walking Floors most notable live appearances were probably their handful of gigs supporting The Diagram Brothers in London and an appearance supporting The Lemon Kittens at Reading University in 1980. This single was recorded at the R.M.S. London studio and the engineer was Andy Le Vien, same for the Airmail first and only single. [SOURCE: LAST.FM] 

 

Label: My Death Telephone Records – TEL 001 

Format: Vinyl, 7", Single 

Country: UK 

Released: 1981 

Style: New Wave, Punk, Post-Punk, Jangle Pop

 

Tracklist:

A No Next Time 2:29 

B Removal 3:38 

 

Notes:

Fold-out sleeve, housed in a plastic bag with sticker. 

 

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V-3 – Unbroken Silence [Cass] (1989, Iron Press)

Monomaniacal home-recordists-cum-outsider-musicians are getting to be a rather common breed, but Columbus, Ohio’s Jim Shepard was hunkered down in his primordial lair back when most people thought “lo-fi” meant listening to music on a transistor radio. Far more devoted to noise than most one-man/4-track operations, Shepard -who hung himself at home in October 1998- had a flair for carving out blocks of blue-collar art-rock that rivals fellow Rust Belt survivors like Destroy All Monsters and Pere Ubu (in its heyday). He also tempered the smart-guy sound-assemblage with a dark and smoky garage aesthetic born of toxin-laden practice spaces and beer-soaked lunch hours out behind the plant. 

 
Shepard inaugurated his insular experimentation back in the late ’70s with Vertical Slit, a free-ranging, amorphously constructed band that laid out its lattices of scree around the leader’s extraordinary guitar constructions. You can hear bits of MC5er Fred “Sonic” Smith, Sonny Sharrock and Can’s Michael Karoli in Shepard’s alternately piercing and massaging use of feedback, while his lyrics coat everything in sight with overlapping bile and black humor. An array of cassette releases and micro-pressed records -in editions ranging from 100 ('Slit and Pre-Slit') to a whopping 300 ('The Live EP')- were excerpted for 'Vertical Slit and Beyond', a revelatory 1976-’90 compendium of isolationist howl that would be impossible to replicate in an age of networking and backslapping indie-rock support groups. 

 
Not that the confronto-delic aesthetic that endures in V-3 (a combo Shepard put together) exactly conforms to that of the whippersnappers who have sprung up over the years. In fact, his last-sane-man-on-earth stance might be even more pronounced in this setting. [SOURCE: TROUSER PRESS]

 

 

Label: Iron Press – none 

Format: Cassette, Album 

Country: US 

Released: 1989 

Style: Indie Rock, Lo-Fi, Post-Punk, Slacker Rock, Psychedelic Rock, Neo-Psychedelia, Noise Rock, Experimental Rock

 

Tracklist: 

A1 Unbroken Silence 

A2 Party/Cop/Judge 

A3 Photograph Burns 

A4 Why I Shot The President 

A5 Central Park 

A6 To Breathe No More 

A7 Nobody Make The Jukebox Please 

B1 Inside Outpost 

B2 Don't Blame Me 

B3 Scrap Metal Burial Ground 

B4 The Artist 

B5 Birds And Garbage 

B6 Voices In The Woods 

B7 The Enemy Within 

B8 Bloody Veteran Feedback 

 

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The Untamed Youth – Some Kinda Fun!! [LP] (1989, Norton Records)

 

Long before Derek (nee Deke) Dickerson became a virtuosic twangy roots music figure (in such outfits as the Dave & Deke Combo and on various roots and rockabilly country solo records), he was the musical force behind the unabashed frat rock revivalist quartet The Untamed Youth. 'Some Kinda Fun', the Untamed Youth's debut LP, is a note-perfect time-travel machine to the days between the reign of surf and psychedelia (which makes sort of revisionist history sense when you consider that The Untamed Youth came from Missouri). Drenched in reverb and riding along on a tide of Farfisa organ and Pabst Blue Ribbon, The Untamed Youth reveled in the simple pleasures of girls 'n' hot rods (granted, not the most inventive ground) with a fidelity to the spirit and letter of the source material some 25 years down the line that, even if you can't get next to the retro factor, is admirable. Of course, NYC's Norton Records label specializes in just this kind of atavistic pleasure and The Untamed Youth were the prize young 'uns among Norton's stable of wild and wacky, thankfully not forgotten recording artists such as Hasil Adkins, King Uszniewicz, and The Flat Duo Jets. With 'Some Kinda Fun' you get the whole package -from liner notes by "Bugger Waller" of "K-ROD Radio" to photos of the boys hanging out, Nuggets-style, in repose next to a hearse next to a barn in Middle America. But all this clever packaging would just be pretentious if the music wasn't so darned hot. Dickerson rides the reverb, expertly picking his twangy way around the aforementioned Farfisa, both of which ride over Steve Mace's bouncing, boundlessly energetic basslines and F. Clarke Marty's fill-happy surf and stomp beat parade. Better still -and unlike many retro-obsessed groups of beer-loving young men parading around the garage rock circuit- you believe Dickerson when he says "I wanna girl and a hot rod" or when he extols the virtues of his "antique '32 Studebaker hearse." From surf to turf, The Untamed Youth take a trip down a musical memory lane by refusing to believe that the past is gone and things aren't so simple. And for 31 minutes and 43 seconds you believe 'em. [SOURCE: ALLMUSIC]

 

 

Label: Norton Records – ED 207 

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album 

Country: US 

Released: Jan 1989 

Style: Surf, Garage Rock, Rock & Roll, Frat Rock, Surf Rock

 

Tracklist:

A1 Some Kinda Fun 1:53 

A2 You've Got To Understand 2:21 

A3 Laughin' Linda 2:01 

A4 Pabst Blue Ribbon 2:32 

A5 Beer Bust Blues 3:13 

A6 Girl And A Hot Rod 2:06 

A7 She's So Satisfying 2:56 

B1 Antique '32 Studebaker Dictator Coupe 1:45 

B2 Surfin' Hearse 1:53 

B3 One Pine Box 1:43 

B4 California Bound 2:00 

B5 I'm Going Away 2:24 

B6 Haulin' Honda 2:15 

B7 Go Go Ferrari 2:31 

 

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Take It – Armchairs / Trends And Relations / Twenty Lines [7''] (1980, Fresh Hold Releases)

 

Take It was an english post-punk and minimal wave band. Their members were Igor (keyboards, vocals, also in Blue Screaming and Collective Horizontal), Simon (guitar, vocals), Alan Tyler (vocals), Paul Platypus (guitar) and Dave Morgan (drums). Inspired by Vic Godard and his "swing jazz" period at Club Left, the band's career culminated in a successful performance at the world famous Ronnie Scott's in Frith Street, London. They released only two 7" singles, 'Man-Made World' (1979) and this 'Armchairs / Trends And Relations / Twenty Lines', both on the Fresh Hold Releases imprint.

 

 
 

Label: Fresh Hold Releases – FHR 1 

Format: Vinyl, 7", 45 RPM 

Country: UK 

Released: 1980 

Style: New Wave, Post-Punk, Art Punk, Indie Pop

 

Tracklist:

A Twenty Lines 

B1 Armchairs 

B2 Trends And Relations 

 

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The Snifters – I Like Boys [7''] (1978, Lightning Records)

The Snifters were a punk band from Amsterdam (Netherlands), also known as Cirrus Minor (from 1966 to 1970) and Mantra Energy Band (from 1970 to 1976). Members were Sandor Kleinsma (vocals, keyboards), Ruud Jacobs (vocals, keyboards), Nico Arzbach (lead guitar, and also in bands such De Dijk and Stampei), Ton van Wier (guitar), Dick van Wier (bass) and Ab de Jong (drums). They only released the 'I Like Boys' ‎7" on the London-based label Lightning Records in 1978. It's hard not to break into a grin listening to "I Like Boys" with its manic energy, sex-crazed frontman, and drum machine propulsion. 

 

Label: Lightning Records – GIL 534 

Format: Vinyl, 7", 45 RPM, Stereo 

Country: UK 

Released: 1978 

Style: Punk, New Wave, Punk Rock

 

Tracklist:

A I Like Boys 

B Baby Punker 

 

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