Rasta Robert - 60 x '90 -19XX- (Tape), Holland

First of all: This is not Reggae... Nor even Dub. Rasta Robert is an obscure figure, part of the dutch home-taping culture. One of his releases from 1986 can be found here. The first song on that cassette is called "Almelo Klerestad" which means something like "Almelo Shit-City": he must be from there. It's a weird example of how neo-hippie-ism with some rastafari flirtation can be intermingled with a DIY and punk attitude. Rasta Robert was also featured on the Dutch compilation Transistors & Chips / E-Lok 1111 alongside other acts like Dier, Absolute Body Control, Doc Wör Mirran and Kapotte Muziek.

But I guess Rasta Robert never really felt at place amongst the Dutch DIY noise/industrial tapers. This release that we have here really shows a complete other type of sound. I don't know when it was released, but I assume it was during the early or mid-nineties. Rasta Robert also had his own website at the beginning of the 00's adressing things from snare theory to Albert Hofmann, which is a quite good illustration of trying to understand the figure of Rasta Robert. Also he seems somewhat related to the Dutch hippie village Ruigoord near Amsterdam that was squatted in the seventies.I don't know how many copies of this cassette were made, but I guess just a couple.

The music is weird electronics combined with early nineties new age and ethno influences (complete with didgeridoo pieces, bird sounds and such). It's really crazy actually and pretty good, a sort of neue-dada-ethno-welle if you like. Other comparable acts that come to mind soundwise are If, Bwana and Rimarimba, although they are far better known and from their context probably not really comparable. It also sounds a bit like of some of the releases on Dutch home-taping label Zimbo. The most accurate description that I can give in respect to the sound is this: imagine you're at a small local neo-psychedelic hippie-festival where during the night you would have psytrance dance parties. You'd probably look for a place with something more decent to experience. Suddenly you'd walk in somewhere where a guy with minimalistic equipment would actually do something interesting live and you'd be gladdened to have found this. As for the rest: you'd probably wouldn't want to know the act's name.

Get the tape HERE

Tox Modell - Groote Keyser 21-3-81 -1981- (Lebel Period 313, One-Sided Cassette), Holland

Tox Modell is one the most important, if not most known Dutch bands, from the so called Ultra movement or period that existed from 1980 until 1981. They existed alongside groups like Minny Pops, Nexda and The Young Lions. Tox Modell was founded at the beginning of 1980 in Amsterdam by Andre Bach, Arjen Schrama, Mark Tegefoss and Bob Pieck later replaced by Xavier Martin. They played without drums, so the music would be entirely based on a burst of cacaphonic energy.

This cassette contains a live show they played at the notorious Squat "Groote Keyser" in Amsterdam which back then functioned somewhat like the headquarters for the Amsterdam squat scene. Good thing is that the show was recorded and partially to be seen here. 

This recording contains pretty much the same songs as some of their other live releases to be found here and here. Andre Bach and Mark Tegefoss later started a project called Det Wiehl which you can find here. Nowadays they still have a great project called Deneuve and have made some releases that are really nice and still in print.

Get the tape HERE

Moonyana - Self-Titled -1991- (Cassette, FV Music, FV38), Slovenia

Moonyana was a free-jazz, impro outfit from Slovenia. This particular cassette is a recording of a concert in 1989 and released according to the label's website in 1991. I don't know whether this group existed for this occasion only, or if they had other releases or concerts. Since there is almost no info around on this group it's hard to tell. About some individuals in the group there is some information: Saxophone player Primož Schmidt is known for having made more releases as well as performing alongside Bosnian underground hero Marko Brecelj. Nino de Gleria is a quite renowned Slovenian bass player in the Slovenian jazz and RIO world.
This cassette came out on Slovenian underground label FV Založba / FV Music. From their website:

- As a label FV has been documenting with a pioneering spirit Slovenian alternative rock for fifteen years. It was the first to expose Laibach's music to the listeners. As a booking agent FV took two of the most exposed bands from its rooster Dicky B. Hardy and Hic Et Nunc to an American coast to coast tour in 1998. The tour marked the first occasion of Slovenian musicians having toured the States without the support of a multinational music label. As a promoter FV has been bringing challenging sounds from groups as different as Einsturzende Neubauten and Dead Moon to the audiences in Slovenia as well as in countries from ex-Yugoslavia. 

FV Music was established in 1985 by the musicians of the group Borghesia and a circle of music aficionados that had previously run Disco FV, the first punk club in Ljubljana. FV, for several years the only Yugoslavian independent label, was born out of necessity to satisfy the creative impulses of its founding members. Today FV is the nation's first in promoting and booking alternative r'n'r bands. It has a strong network of relationships with clubs and local promoters in Slovenia and other ex-Yougoslavian states. It has a number of long standing contacts with European and American agencies. And it has a rooster with some of the most exiting and popular r'n'r bands in Slovenia and Croatia - Dicky B. Hardy, Rhythm Thieves, KUD Idijoti, The Spoons and Bambi Molesters. These are the bands that on Slovenian and ex-Yougoslavian club circuit guarentee a good night out. In Slovenia of today FV is a synonym for rock & roll. -

The recording has quite some surface noise since it's a documentation of a concert transferred to cassette, transferred by me to the computer. Nevertheless, it's fine free jazz improvisation with some minor RIO hints.

Get it HERE

Vovokai - No Title (1st Cassette) -198X-, Holland

Six years ago, No Longer Forgotten Music started uncovering all obscurities from the Dutch DIY cassette underground. Among them releases from the city of Eindhoven in the south of The Netherlands. Vovokai was a band from Eindhoven too, consisting of Paul Verwilligen and Edwin van Eck. Although nothing visually proves that this silver spray-painted cassette is Vovokai, you'll have to believe my words. Moreover, it's the first untitled one mentioned by Frans de Waard's Nederlandse Cassette Catalogus (Dutch cassette catalogue) and quite rare since probably only a hundful have survived.

This Vovokai release must be from the early eighties, but about exact dates I don't have a clue. The band was closely related and intermingled with Eindhoven's guerilla artists association 6de Kolonne and belonged to the same scene as Baader Pop Gruppe, MTVS, Zwoek and others. Most of them are to be found here and here. The 6de Kolonne still exists today as an artists collective. Edwin van Eck later moved on with a solo project called Zombies Under Stress.

As for the music: It's a typically DIY impro noise thing, but has certain elements which makes it a real treat. Drenched in guitar primitivism, repetitiveness and electronic manupulations, Vovokai seems to create sounds that are reminiscent of other groups from the Dutch cassette culture underground like Solenoid (to be found on this blog), but also bands like Campingsex and occasionally hinting at something that could as well be a very early Sonic Youth demo. I have tried to seperate some tracks, but I'm not sure how it's intended to be. I have a strong feeling that the B Side was intended to be one whole piece. But then again, what is the B side? Anyway, listen to it yourself!

Highly Recommended!

Get it HERE

 

Entre Vifs - Promotional Copy -198X- (Tape), France

So what we have here is a some sort of promotional cassette by Entre Vifs, a side project of the French bruitiste and power electronics masters Le Syndicat. This might be one of the first releases of this project as the cover says "Our new noisecraft ensemble is called.. Entre Vifs". This ensemble has a couple of releases from the second half of the eighties onwards, you can find some here, here and here. I don't know whether these songs have been published on another cassette or cd compilation already, but I figured that this tape has its own special value as it had a promotional purpose. Get ready for some harsh noise stuff that you should only play loud! More information here on the official website plus a nice tribute video here.

                                                          High volume required!

As for this blog:

I intended to be posting a mixture of all kinds of things and not to fill in too much gaps of the rest of the blogosphere. However, a lot of music I wanted to post is available somehow somewhere which keeps me from posting it and strongly reduces my material. On the other hand this blog could grow out to be something very big within some months ( I've got some incredible opportunities), allthough I have to wait and see. As for some real oddities that are not really in the vein of this blog, I might start another blog next to this one with another kind of character. Anyway, keep returning because new posts will keep coming.

Raschenko - Import Export • Budapest Sofia Bilbao Rom -1984- (12 Inch), Denmark

        

So next stop is this quite rare and unknown 12 inch vinyl by the Danish band Raschenko. Actually, this is the same band as the amazing Ivor Axeglovitch which has been posted ages ago here on Mutant Sounds to which we mortal souls owe everything we have (unfortunately a lot of links are dead now). Unlike Ivor Axeglovitch their beafheartian art damaged first albums, Raschenko tends towards a more plain New Wave sound and is less elaborated in its mingling of wacky guitars and dada-esque collage. Still the old records also display a minimal synthy and new wave side, for example the song  "Moscow Beach Club" at first makes you think that you're up for some amazing interpretation of Cultural Amnesia's "Materialistic Man" ( I really wonder...).

Anyway, this Raschenko record has two nice songs. It resembles a kind of music Palais Schaumburg would play if they tried to copy New Order while being Danish art students. The "export" song could easily also be a song of the dutch band Niew Hip Stilen, which is still one of my all time favourite groups.

This has been uploaded before on youtube, but only watched 20 times, so I thought I'd do a rip and give it extra attention. Hopefully someone will reissue the whole discography of Ivor Axeglovitch on vinyl soon as the albums are impossible to get and issued in editions of 100 copies. This band is up there with the best ones from Denmark like Moral and Mind Pollution.

                                                                Get it HERE

Solenoid - Norey Games -1982- (Tape, Private Release), Holland

I'm very happy to announce this post. Peer Saer, one of the members of Solenoid has been so kind to tell the story of the band and reveal a somewhat forgotten history within the field of dutch hometaping and DIY-underground:

Solenoid was an experimental pop group from Harderwijk, the Netherlands. Expressing their amplified waves through music and disturbed sounds. They were active as a band in 1981 - 1982. Starting as a trio with guitar, bass, voice, organ, rhytm box. More terrestials became involved in their works. Expanded with drums, crackle box, toy instruments, trumpet, saxophone  and manipulated tapes. They were a live band, and involved in cassette culture. Rooted in psychedelic freaked-out pothead pixies underworld. Taking inspiration from those-were-the days-styles such as no wave, industrial music, the experimental expressions of Deutsche Welle, as well as early futurist art. The core members were closely connected with De Fabriek. The first Solenoid tape was in fact a collaboration with De Fabriek.

Occasional airplay on Dutch FM radio was given by VPRO's RadioNome. The Radiola Salon was also a FM radio outlet for Solenoid. Amazing free radio shows organized and presented by Willem de Ridder.

Solenoid received some exposure in Vinyl magazine: ... The music mostly comes about through improvisations and recorded on tape without overdubs.Before playing they agree on a key, but the final results are based on coincidence. Music means feelings to them. Something you don't figure out in advance ... Their first performance in the Effenaar as supporting act for Nasmak aroused mixed reactions ...

The band performed in Octopus with Doxa Sinistra during one of the [forgotten] Ultra nights in 1982. Other performances took place in Walhalla - Deventer, and in their squated homebase Het Moeras - Harderwijk. Their last concert was in Gallery Het Langhuis - Zwolle during the Elettrico Tempo exhibition along with De Fabriek, ERA_ORA, Nexda, Wolf P. Rillings, and others at the end of 1982.  

                                                        Het Moeras - Harderwijk

Discography:

De Fabriek - Solenoid goes Fabriek: 1981 De Fabriek Records & Tapes Fabprod 3 (Here)

Solenoid - Silex Hippopola: 1982 New Bulwark Records & Tapes (Here)

Solenoid - Norey Games: 1982 private release

Audio Exchange Compilation: 1983 Soft Joke Prod Tapes & Records

Solenoid Superfar: circa 1986 De Fabriek Records & Tapes (Here)

Norey Games is a tape that has never been shared before in any way on the net! It was distributed only among invitees during a private release party in the summer of 1982. The tracks are mostly compiled from their live performances and alternated with tape experiments.

Get it HERE 

A forgotten cassette of Peer Saer's project Insecticide might follow shortly. Stay tuned!

Art Deco - 1983-84-85 Live Select & '86 Select (Budapest), Hungary

Art Deco was a Hungarian industrial group that started in the early eighties. They are mostly famous because they did quite some concerts together with bands like Test Dept. and Die Tödliche Doris. I think they have also played at the famous Berlin Atonal Festival. Usually when somebody mentions this band it is typified as the “Hungarian Einstürzende Neubauten” which on the one hand side isn’t really strange. Bands behind the iron curtain had little knowledge of musical developments so when encountering a seven-times-overdubbed C-60 tape of a band like Einstürzende Neubauten sure they were influenced by it and were recreating something alike. 

However, in itself bands like Art Deco were very obscure in Hungary and even today when it’s more than 20 years ago that the iron curtain fell, bands like these are still somewhat in the shadows of slightly more popularized sounds that we know from the nineties. Industrial, weird New Wave, Punk etc. were not really fully flourishing in the Eastern Block (except Yugoslavia), unless you knew about this fringe stuff and you didn’t consider the commercialized fashion side. Actually you could just go to jail for doing things that could be perceived subversive. So it’s safe to say that these bands are quite unique. Moreover they did have own artistic content and created music as good as everywhere else.

This cassette has live songs on the A side and studio songs on the B side. Furthermore this is a self made compilation as you can see. The live-side has music from ’83, ’84 and ’85 and is reminiscent of the great (!) Hungarian shamanistic rock group Vágtázó Hallotkémek (VHK). Specially with the depressive Hungarian vocals that are about other realities and dark voids, it creates a similar atmosphere. The non-live side is from ’86 and consists of a twenty minutes church choir and bells straight forward classic industrial track reminding me of Current 93’s Nature Unveiled period. The other tracks resemble strongly rhythm based industrial acts like Esplendor Geometrico, early Test Dept or even more so the dutch band Het Zweet.

This is an old and rare cassette, so this also shows the ups and downs in sound and production. It tried my best, but on some songs the stereo starts to be mono and so on. Also I don't know the song titles, so I called them untitled. Art Deco is a great obscure band that needs more attention, especially their old material. You can find some other music from Art Deco here and someone is doing a compilation on Hungarian industrial and wave music here where you also find nice posters of this band.

Enjoy!

More things are slowly being uploaded to the blog! I’ve been extremely busy, but stay tuned! More Eastern European cassettes, more other stuff!

The Formatory Apparatus - Gentle Crisis -2013- (Tape)

I'm very happy to announce my first cassette release called Gentle Crisis.

The artwork is made by Kim David Bots.

Edition of 20 with small handmade booklet. 

If you want to order one either write me a message or contact Kim here.

Price: 8,- (Euro) - postage not included

https://soundcloud.com/the-formatory-apparatus

-SOLD OUT-

Brunst - Rebellen -1986- (Tape, Konduktör Rekords, KR 17), Sweden

So let’s start the blog off with a tape I really love. This follow up of the incredible minimal synth tape Rrröster by Brunst (you knowwhere to find it) continues where the former left off, only adds a couple of more experimentations and industrial hints. This 1986 tape from one of the guys of Njurmännen (Magnus) starts with Auwa II, the little brother (or sister) of the monster minimal synth track Auwa on the first cassette, still one of my all time favorite songs. Pure analog synth power! These tapes deserve a proper reissue, maybe on the label which has already released the old Njurmännen cassettes (which are awesome!)  If they reissued those then they should rerelease these closely related minimal synth pearls from sweden too. Moreover since the whole minimal synth wave hype started.
Anyway the best song here is “For Jogga Only”. A totally crazy, demented and distorted minimal synth version of Billy Idol’s white wedding. I’m sure Jogga liked it a lot.

This release was on Konduktör records, also from sweden, which is definitely worth checking out. Has some awesome acts on there like Cloister Crime, Fågeldöd, M. Forshage and others that you can find elsewhere. Brunst just released a new tape on Hosianna Records in the end of 2012, don’t know what it sounds like, but I’m curious. You can buy it here. Also Rebellen is still available through Börft records here, the label of the legendary FRAK guys. Buy it and support the artists!

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Enjoy!

The sound is not in the best shape as one of the stereo sides of the tape itself had a lot of white noise and I’m still figuring out how to rip music the best way. Any simple suggestions are very welcome. If someone wants to bother to reduce the noise I can supply the WAV. Files. Also I need help in knowing what would be the best website to upload stuff to, because I don’t trust anyone in life anymore since the megaupload drama. No, just kidding, I don’t trust upload websites that much anymore and they are getting more and more commercialized.

Welcome!

The focus of this blog is mostly on music, probably unknown and forgotten. Sometimes serious stuff, sometimes oddities. However, my main concern is not to complete the world of deviant music on other blogs, but to offer you a path through my insights about music, art and possible other stuff. So don’t expect the usual music blog with tons of stuff, because I don’t have that much to share.To a certain extent  almost all music is already uncovered throughout the blogosphere. All uploads offered here are rips I do myself and I don’t want to share what you can already find elsewhere or copy existing links. Probably some parts will focus more strictly on dutch stuff, but I’ll try to keep it as international as possible. Also I would like to raise a platform with this blog for own projects, projects of partners in crime and other interesting stuff. I don’t post all the time because I’ve got enough things to do and like to enjoy life away from cyberspace.
Let’s see what will happen!