Blacklight Braille - The Carbonek Album -1991- (LP, Vetco), US

Merry Christmas and an Archaic New Year to all followers of the blog!

Blacklight Braille was an ever morphing band from Cincinatti, Ohio led by musicians Owen Smith and Doug Knight. The band claimed their own style called "Fringe Rock". Once they described it in a very good and thorough interview from 1993 as:

"Music created by rock musicians, yet not quite meeting the classical definition of rock' n' roll. It differs to the degree that it might be said to fall within an entirely different location, fringe rock. When we started, we were doing a music that was so far out on the fringe that the beauties were cryptic or hidden. It is highly improvisational music created with the available technology, and it searches for new and different musical instruments and sounds, You can't dance to it, but it does have elements of rock music."

Blacklight Braille made numerous albums on their own Vetco Records and started out in the mid-seventies as a collective of street performance artists and musicians under the name Bitter Blood Street Theatre. They acclaimed some underground fame in Cincinatti for their weird shows. Eventually they created the project Blacklight Braille with their first totally demented and experimental collage album Electric Canticles Of The Blacklight Braille in 1981. 

Later on Blacklight Braille was also picked up by the international deviant music scenes through the many albums that they distributed to radio stations worldwide. Besides their Fringe Rock music they also started to incorporate the somewhat occult fascination for British King Arthur and the Arthurian Legends. The musical influences became even more diverse and were now being accompanied by oral stories and poetry, regularly dealing with the Arthurian Legends.

The Carbonek Album, (Castle Carbonek is the place where supposedly the Holy Grail is kept) is a strange Arthurian concept album in which the world of Arthurian legends unfolds. About ten different people are part of the band for this occasion and the album goes into many directions, ranging from electronic ambient synth sounds to the new age sounds of fountains to dark experimentation with spoken tales. It has a humorous yet serious approach always keeping a pace with Arthurian atmospheres and concepts with tracks like The Fountain Falling From The Ace Of Cups, The Gift For Galahad and Guinhwyvare The Tall And Fair. It sort of reminds me of later work by Legendary Pink Dots, although more demented in approach. Also It makes me think of Big City Orchestra and their vast discography of albums.

Blacklight Braille is another one of those great US bands that is very much overlooked considering their unique music and the efforts they have put in their albums. Look out for the rest when you can!

Path to the Holy Grail over HERE

Dustbreeders - Le Procès Cannibale -1999- (Single-Sided LP, Élevage De Poussière), France

Dustbreeders is an abstract noise trio from Metz that consists of Yves Botz, Michel Henritzi and Thierry Delles. The outfit exists since the early nineties and is known for their noise-induced deconstructive cavemen wall-of-sound cacaphony. In that sense they belong to the less industrial side of the French noise scene known for bruitistes like Vivenza or Le Syndicat.

Dustbreeders frequently collaborate with Japanese Hijokaidan vocalist Junko. The members have also played together with a large spectrum of noise and impro musicians ranging from Jac Berrocal to The Nihilist Spasm Band and are furthermore involved in too many ofshoot projects and releases to count. Dustbreeders live performances are intense and memorable, look at this to get an idea. Le Procès Cannibale was recorded in 1998 and was Dustbreeders' first release on a 12 inch format. From the liner notes:

The Cannibal Trial
Our music, more than any other, and most of all with so much more cruelty than any other, feeds itself with music, thus, its own kind. Eating other people's music, isn't that terribly inhuman? What can be heard in it, if not the scraps from a cruel banquet? And the atrocious agony of our fellow creatures? 

Our Instrumentation, materially as well as methodically, is a complete alimentary canal, from one hole to another. There is obviously some litigation in our comprehension of culture, regarding every school ever, and, just as obviously, this is a court as well as a trial. A curiously fair trial, notwithstanding the torturing noise that's going on. 

Which music triumphs in this cannibal trial, the one that is both judge and hangman, or the victim that's been digested but so well defended by the music-loving memory of the listener and the genius of its begetter?

Dustbreeders still exist today and their latest record can be bought over at 213 Records.

Get it HERE

Amsterdam Stringtrio ‎- Dodekakania -1986- (LP, DATA Records), Netherlands

The Amsterdam Stringtrio was a one-off project formed by Cellist Ernst Reijseger, Violinist Maurice Horsthuis and double bass player Ernst Glerum. Three Dutch string instrument musicians that recorded this album in Amsterdam for the occasion. All of them have been members of the ICP Orchestra and have played with many other respected improvisation and jazz musicians, from Lol Coxhill to Derek Bailey.

To me this album is a bit too much substantiated with classical music influences, instead of the anarchic improvisation I usually like. But nevertheless it's still very atmospheric and gets into more adventurous parts throughout its progression. In any case it's another piece of the Dutch avant-garde music puzzle that I try to give attention to on the blog every now and then. It reminds me a bit of Louis Andriessen's soundtrack Golven, Harry Sparnaay's Bass Clarinet Identity II or the Brazilian MEC 70 compilation: all posted here on the blog a long time ago!

Another highlight to me is the incredible artwork of this album which was designed by the artist Maryke de Vries and specially printed by artist Zeger Reyers. Dodekakania was limited to 500 hand-numbered vinyl copies.

 Get it HERE

 

Message:
There's a chance the blog will run out of material in the near future, although there are still posts to come. It is getting increasingly harder to find material and I have been doing this for quite some years now. I'm not saying that this blog will shut down, but I need to see how the future will develop regarding Arhcaic Inventions based on new material and the future developments in my personal life. It might also somehow elevate or expand into something new, yet similar. Let's see!

áPolóK - Szarvasgyár -1995- (Tape, Bahia), Hungary

I finally was able to track down the last of four cassettes by Hungarian band áPolóK (The Nurses) somewhere. The other three tapes I posted before on the blog. áPolóK is one of Hungary's finest groups to rule the Hungarian underground that manifested itself during the mid-eighties until the alternative boom of the nineties after the fall of the iron curtain.

Their absurdist music displays intricate musical structures, Hungarian folklore, zappa-esque manoeuvres and alternative rock. They are comparible to the Hungarian group Tudósok. Also later bands from Eastern Europe share some of this musical absurdity like the Slovenian band Pinja Dzazna (can anyone please find those albums for me? They seem to have disappeared.)

The title of this album is Szarvasgyár meaning Deer Factory as well as Shit Iron Factory. The title makes a lot of sense since the band came from the city of Miskolc which is Hungary's main city for heavy industry. This album is probably one of their craziest, but also the one that stands closest to Hungarian folk music.

áPolóK belong to Hungary's finest experimental underground music groups. Make sure to check out their crazy video's online to get an idea of who they were. Today they still exist through other obscure bands in Hungary.

Recommended!

Get it HERE

 

The Unnatural Logarithm ‎- Excited Electrons -1981- (Tape, Logarithmic Tapes), US

It has been a while since I posted some real noisy stuff. At the start of this blog I uploaded quite some home-taping and industrial cassettes, but I ran out of them. It all depends on what crosses my path at what time. Kind of the same way I listen to music in general.

Even though the inner part of the cover says something about a tow truck in Ontario, The Unnatural Logarithm was a highly obscure home-taping industrial project from Bloomfield, New Jersey, US. This cassette was released through Logarithmic Tapes (most likely their own label) that also released some other American industrial cassettes around the same period.

Excited Electrons is a classic 1981 time document from the DIY industrial era of the US. It's a mix of synthesizer noise, casio drum presets, the right processed experimental guitar use and provocative spoken vocals. Not incredibly exceptional, but nevertheless enjoyable: quite weird and noisy. It also reminds me of the Variëté Royal cassette I uploaded ages ago.

Get it HERE

Stan Red Fox - Same -1988- (LP, ITM Records), Germany

Stan Red Fox were a band from Berlin formed by Stephan Hachtmann (who came from the GDR), Lars Rudolph of anarcho-jazz combo Kixx and Franklin D. Newmeier (later in Caspar Brötzmann's Massaker). They had multiple releases by the end of the eighties and beginning of the nineties. Their first self-released EP cassette is to be found here.

The music resembles the cross-over sound of new wave by the end of the eighties, but is also clearly inspired by the 80's No Wave art-rock and jazz-pop styles from New York. Apart from more conventional songs they also play weird Butthole Surfers-like outburst, sing German lullabies and create experimental absurd jazz sounds in almost Zeuhl-like manners. German bands like Reifenstahl or AG Geige also come to mind, as well as more obvious UK groups like Rip Rig & Panic or even Pigbag.

I was quite surprised that this wasn't available yet. I guess it's also a reminder of that there is so much good stuff out there that won't cost you a fortune. Don't believe the hype of today's internet music market and listen to what you like.

Get it HERE

Care Of The Cow - Dogs' Ears Are Stupid -1983- (Cassette, Fame & Fortune Records), US

This is the first time that I post a tape that I didn't digitize myself and that wasn't donated to the blog. Lately I've been doing a lot of late-night searches into inactive blogs and other platforms to map obscure material that was posted on the web these last ten years but that got lost again (remember when your external hard drive crashed?). Some of this hard to find material I'm uploading to Youtube (for the time being, I'm not a fan).

This cassette that I found on Care Of The Cow's own webpage has little to do with what I wrote above, just thought that it needs more attention!

Care Of The Cow was formed in Chicago in 1974 by Christine Baczewska, Victor Sanders, Sher Doruff and Kevin Clark. From 1974-1984 Baczewska, Sanders and Doruff produced an album “I Still Don’t Know your Style” (1981) and an album length cassette Dog’s Ears Are Stupid (1983). There are many live recordings and an promo LP from 1975.

The album I Still Don't Know Your Style captured COTC's amazing eclectic musical style. With their psychedelic folk, art-rock, strange manipulations and collages with humouristic lyrics COTC remains one of those well kept secrets from Chicago's 70's and 80's underground. Some people remember them from festivals in the mid-sevnties and some remember them from a later period in the eighties. Nevertheless their music lacks attention from listeners, since it's musically too unclassifiable for many.

COTC's even more hidden cassette Dogs' Ears Are Stupid collects some other sounds than you would expect. Apparently the band began to experiment with synthesizers and drum machines in the eighties and started to poor their experimental folk-rock music into minimal synth depths. They managed to achieve their musical warmth in a cold way. A great way only real groovy people that were active in seventies could crossover with into the eighties (Daevid Allen could be another example)  What a gem! I think the track European Trains has some of the best minimal synth potential of the album, while the folk elements are still there.

Care Of The Cow ceased to exist by the mid-eighties and the members allegedly got scattered over the US and Europe. The singer Christine Baczewska released a compilation CD in 1993. Maybe someone knows more.

Highy Recommended!

Get it HERE

Ceddo + Derschau ‎- Grüne Rose Live -1981- (LP, Saguitarius), Germany

In the early eighties punk, post-punk and new wave paved the way for new generations and created quite a musical break with the previous generations and their more (psych) rock fueled sixties and seventies. Some artists from the psychedelic era had quite some difficulties reinventing themselves in the new punk times. Daevid Allen, front man of the legendary Gong for example, made a dark album called The Death of Rock and Other Entrances in 1982. A different approach than he had before. Somewhere in the nineties when a neo-psych revival changed everything, the legends of the sixties returned fully to their spaced out selves of their prime.

But some musicians and bands were never influenced by external factors and kept making music during the eighties like it was 1972. Some real psychedelic pearls were actually made in the eighties, especially in what we could call late-krautrock. In germany there was quite a continuation of the krautrock scene and legendary pioneers as well as unknown musicians kept playing in their new or old bands. This resulted in many privately released albums, some of which are nearly impossible to find today.

Ceddo was a jazz fusion trio from Dortmund fronted by guitarist Jochen Strumpf. In 1981 they released this Live album with psychedelic jams and poetry which was recorded in Dortmund on 08.05.1981 and 9 + 10 5. 1981 im Gasthof zur Mühle, Ascheberg. They worked together with the countercultural poet Christoph Derschau. He was influenced o.a. by Bukowski and other US underground literature. The lyrics of Grüne Rose (Green rose) on this album are dealing o.a. with a corrupted state, environment, psychedelic rock music, existence and more. It's quite a good freak out album actually. If you understand German you might hear some echo's of political krautrock bands like Floh de Cologne, Von Brühwarm Theater or Ton Steine Scherben.

Grüne Rose. Das Ziel des Todestriebs ist nicht die Zerstörung an sich, sondern die Aufhebung des Bedürfnisses nach Zerstörung - Herbert Marcuse

Get it HERE

Jana Koubková - Bosa -1985- (LP, Supraphon), Czech Republic

Somehow there always existed a relation with Brazilian Bossa Nova in Eastern Europe. Specially in times when coffee places behind the Iron Curtain flourished and nightly neon lights were flirting with western titles creating a concealed idea of a vibrant night life throughout all of the Eastern European capitals. Latin American tunes were played by jazz bands of the fifties and sixties and the particular feeling lived on all the way to the revival of the retro lounge movement around the change of the millenium, reminiscing the geometrical design imagery and nightly recreation created during the socialist times. It was a strange daily life counterpart to a political system that on the other hand ofcourse was looked upon as a system of repression and terror in many ways. Nevertheless exploring  the artists, designers and architects from the time one notices that this culture also contained something unique and refined. Besides that it coincidentally and not so coincidentally had a lot in common with modernism in Latin America.

Jana Koubková is a Czech Jazz singer that was active from the seventies in many Jazz groups like C&K Vokal and Jazz Fragment Prague. In 1985 she created her first solo album Bosa that can be viewed as a unique Czech deconstructed experimental avant-garde Bossa Nova album. Apart from the rhythms that are used, it's mainly a voice and scat album with weird overdubs, free jazz explosions and experimental repetitions. Actually it fits quite well next to the Brazilian contemporary music from the mid eighties that used traditional rhythm and melody with new experiments and unconventional instruments like Andréa Daltro or Cinema.

Bosa examplifies Jana Koubková's creativity and progressive spirit and totally exceeds a mere jazz album. This is true singing talent molded into avant-garde voice experiment art comparable to the amazing work of Russian singer Valentina Ponomareva (or for that matter).

Another one for this summer (letní)!

Get it HERE

Luna - Comment Sa Va ? -1985- (EP, Toypick, Zero Records), Japan

Luna was a female duo from Kyoto, Japan that made this jewel of an EP in 1985. Backed by other musicians they created these songs of naive wave sweetness in French, complete with the grammatically incorrect way of spelling Comment ça va? It got released on a sublabel of Zero Records that also released early Shonen Knife and After Dinner.

The EP contains four songs that remind me of other Japanese music from the eighties that used the French chanson style as their conceptual image and sound like a.o. Variètè, Ichiko Hashimoto or Corina Corrina. Actually this cultural appropriation often displays great sensitivity. Furthermore it uses a format which feels like a very honest approach to music. Let's say a toy keyboard, a synth, some simple percussion, a duo or a person by itself, broken language, childish naivety, simple melodies and timid vocals. An example of pure simplicity transformed into honest emotion and love.

Today these type of sounds are for example still to be found in acts like EYE or maybe Le Fruit Vert. Other acts from the past with a similar sensibility that come to mind are The Same, Aksak Maboul or Antena. Ofcourse they have nothing to do with each other contextually. And yeah I guess I'm a sucker for this type of music. 

So far only the main track Comment Sa Va ? was around, which is still the highlight, but finally it's here in its entirety.

Hopefully this adds to a naive, warm, healthy, and romantic summer for you all !

Get it HERE

Niew Hip Stilen - Grüss Aus Wien & Kill Em All (Live at Pandora's Music Box Festival Rotterdam 1983, VARA Moondogs Radioshow), Netherlands

Niew Hip Stilen is one of my favorite Dutch bands. They came from Rotterdam and played an amazing style of electronic synth wave jazz with some hints towards the urban music culture of early eighties New York City (remember New Order going there which led to the Blue Monday period).  Nevertheless their sound is also very Dutch and akin to the other great electro jazz group from Rotterdam called Kiem.

Niew Hip Stilen consisted of Maarten van Gent – bass, drums, guitar, percussie & vocals; Jan Willem van Mook – bass, sax, keyboards, percussion & computer; Rutger van Otterloo – sax, drums & percussion. They had one self-released single in 1981, which came out on the label of the Quarantaineweg, the legendary artist squats of Rotterdam. On the back of the single a plan of the squats can be noticed. Other bands connected to the squats were a.o. The Black Sheep and Dull Schicksal. Niew Hip Stilen made one album on Eksakt records called Heartsounds and Murmers that still stands as one of the most inventive and interesting Dutch albums from the eighties. 

As for these two songs: this week I found some self-recorded cassettes: blank with handwriting on them. All full concerts of eighties bands that played in Holland. Some of them contain the recordings of the legendary Pandora's Music Box Festival that took place three times in Rotterdam from 83' to 85'. It was a unique festival of new wave, avant-garde and industrial music. You can find a blog dedicated to the festival here. Bands like Fad Gadget, Clock DVA, The Durutti Column, X-Mal Deutschland and SPK all played the first edition. Most of those recordings are available online. Niew Hip Stilen also played and even released a hyperrare cassette with those recordings that was uploaded here.

So as you can see the recordings are actually already available there, but here we have two of the songs in a slightly better sound quality since it was broadcasted by the VARA Moondogs radioshow. Moondogs was a Dutch radioshow from the eighties dedicated to interesting contemporary music with in depth specials around certain bands. Also you can hear the host talking about the band.

Get two rare Niew Hip Stilen live songs HERE
 

Leo Cuypers - Same -1972- (LP, BASF/BIM), Netherlands

Leo Cuypers (Maastricht, 1947) is one of Holland's most inventive and important pianists in the improvisation and Jazz world. He started out as a drummer but soon moved to the piano. As a pianist he developed a unique jazzy playing style by which he improvised many songs just by feeling, mostly in a rhythmic way based on moods and imagined titles. He was frequently playing with Dutch impro Saxophonist Willem Breuker (founder of the Instant Composers Pool and Willem Breuker Kollektief).

Leo Cuypers is probably most famous for his Zeeland Suite from 1977 also with Willem Breuker and others. Throughout the decades of the last century he did many scores and other soundtracks with Willem Breuker. Cuypers was the only person Breuker would trust with his opinion when showing new scores. Their work together keeps a unique place in the Dutch jazz and impro history. On the verge of the nineties Cuypers stopped collaborating with Willem Breuker. By then he had built a decades-long reputation as an impro pianist in a 'jazz world' of women, booze and other nightly endeavours. You can see a short documentary in Dutch with Leo Cuypers here. I love when he basically concludes that he didn't learn shit(!) during his time at the conservatory. This first album he made came out on BASF in The Netherlands, just like the Theo Loevendie Consort (of which Leo Cuypers was a member) as well as the Indonesia inspired experimental Jazz prog band Banten. Also he played on the most psychedelic album by Dutch cult singer Ramses Shaffy from Amsterdam, called Sunset Sunkiss.

From the original 1972 liner notes:

"Maastricht was a beautiful city to live in. People from the Conservatory, the Academy of Arts, painters, sculptors - they all made it a nice scene. But then the hippies from the western part of Holland moved in and things changed so much that many of the artists left." This is pianist Leo Cuypers Talking. Born in Heemstede (near Haarlem) on December 1, 1947 (his parents originally came from Amsterdam) he moved to Maastricht with his family when he was about nine. And he always wanted to study at the Maatricht Conservatory. But after three years he quit; in fact he was chased away after four months of absence. "I was frightened, you know. What was going on there at the time (1962-1965) had nothing to do with making music. One was trained to play one's part in a symphony orchestra - not to play too much out of tune - not to play too well - just to do the job. And nobody was really interested in that kind of music. After lessons the kids ran to their favourite drinking place to listen to pop music, that's what they loved. And besides that, I played jazz, I wanted to become an arranger. I played drums, piano was at first only an obligatory second instrument. I started on drums when I was six. We had a piano at home, but I liked the drums better. It was only when I had learned to play enough piano that I discarded the drums. One day my set was stolen. Or rather, I hoped someone would steal it. Which they did. So I just had to go on with piano. Anyway, at the Maastricht Conservatory the scene finally changed too. Two years after I was chased away I made a guest appearance there."

As for many musicians in this country, the competition that's been held every year since 1958 at the lakeside resort of Loosdrecht meant a big change for Leo Cuypers as well. He entered the 1969 competition, playing solo. It was the percussion element, an echo from his playing the drums. As Maastricht is way down south in holland and the music scene - or anyway the jazz scene - is in the west, by being at Loosdrecht and winning this competition he was heard. Drummer Pierre Courbois liked his playing and when working at the festival of contemporary jazz in Baden-Baden, Germany, he advised Joachim Ernst Berendt to let Leo Cuypers replace Joachim Kühn, who had had a car accident. It was there that Leo Cuypers met composer and reedman Willem Breuker, founder member of the Instant Composers Pool, and it was through Breuker that Leo got his first gig in Amsterdam. Where a little later Theo Loevendie heard him and asked him to play with his consort. So, today, with Misha Mengelberg and Kees Hazevoet, Leo Cuypers is one of the three most foremost pianists in the contemporary music scene. He lives in Amsterdam. - 1972

Get it HERE

áPolóK - Egyedül A Világon -1993- (Tape, Artalom), Hungary

Time for another cassette by Hungarian cultband áPolóK (trans. The Nurses) after two of their other releases I posted on the blog before. áPolóK comes from the Hungarian city of Miskolc and started out in 1982. They are ranked among Hungary's finest weirdo avant-garde groups. They can be placed among other Hungarian underground bands from the eighties and nineties like A.E. Bizottság (Albert Einstein Committee), Kampec Dolores, Tudósok, Vágtázo Hallottkémek and many others.

Their humoristic hyper-intelligent lyrics combine the insanity of the Hungarian culture with great poetic depth and absurdity. áPolóK is a quite unique band in Hungary mashing up a Rock In Opposition sound that contains unorthodox transitions in zappaesque ways with a great punk attitude and alternative rock manoeuvres. It's a band that is very underrated and deserves a lot more attention.

Egyedül A Világon (alone in the world) was áPolóK's first album that was also published abroad as a CD in England which was translated to The One And Only In The World (get that one here!). The cassette was self-released on their own Artalom label (it's a word merging the words Art and Content with each other.) I think this album is one of the stronger releases and shows a more developed sound of the band. The musical quality is keeping the right pace with the showcased absurdity. Some of the members of áPolóK are still playing in bands in Hungary like the absurd punk group Büdösök. Again check out their other releases in the archive of this blog.

Highly Recommended!

Get it - in all its original cassette glory - HERE

Bewth (Bewegingstheater) - Over De Dauw Van Dit Land -1972- (LP, Space Records), Netherlands

Bewegingstheater (Movement Theatre) was a Dutch theatre group and Amsterdam based theatre school that was active from 1964 to 2005. In their existence they created 126 theatre productions. They worked with architecture, dance, music and poetry. In the late sixties and early seventies Bewth created numerous plays in which their happening-like plays were combined with psychedelic music and poetry.

The musical development started with voice experiments by the actors and were later replaced by compositions and music of the time like Pink Floyd and Arthur Brown. As the architectural element was introduced in the plays, more and more own music started to be created by some of the members, most importantly by: Peter Klencke, Walter Jaffé, Victoria Varekamp and Flip van de Pol. You can get an impression of a Bewth play in the late sixties by clicking here and here. This was a play called Bosche Bollen (1968), it starts with a still of The Garden Of Earthly Delights by Dutch medieval painter Hieronymus Bosch. Bosche Bollen are the famous patisserie chocolate balls connected to the city of 's-Hertogenbosch in the south of The Netherlands, also the birth city of Hieronymus Bosch.

In 1972 the record Over De Dauw Van Dit Land  (On The Dew Of This Land) was realized. The greater part of the music was created by Peter Klencke. From 1968 to 1974 he used country and blues slide guitar and a saxophone to create improvised sound imagery that corresponded with the movement of the actors. Also he composed music to the poetry of Bewth-member Ben Zwaal that was recited during plays. The music from this period was compiled on Over De Dauw Van Dit Land. The record was only sold during performances.

The music and poetry on this record have a distinct feeling of the Dutch countryside, in as much as that exists within the mostly urban landscape of Holland. The fragile cardboard cover shows a person in what I think is a boerenkool field. A vegetable that is eaten in Holland in the winter and which traditionally needs a night of frost over it to be eaten (frost and dew, important in alchemy, paganism.. it's all somewhere in that realm isn't it?). Most of the poetry and the song titles deal with nature in its purest form, very much in a pagan fairytale sense. Also one of the songs has a Frisian title, embedding this marginalized language and culture of the Netherlands in the record.

The record is a pearl of Dutch avant-garde acid folk and jam improvisation reminding me a bit of the Dutch obscurity Surprieze - Zeer Oude Klanken En Heel Nieuwe Geluiden from 1973. It is a beautiful example of free-form theatre mixed with spaced out music from that era, comparable to the French Théâtre du Chêne Noir d'Avignon, the Japanese Tokyo Kid Brothers, Tenjo Sajiki, the Belgian happening films of Ludo Mich or even the 1960's Living Theatre in New York.

The Bewegingstheater later went on doing many other performances including in the streets of Dutch cities (like in Middelburg on the picture above). Eventually, the company evolved out of its hippie character while focussing more and more on the relation between theatre and architecture until seazing its activities in 2005. This is one of the most amazing hidden seventies records from Holland and we can only hope there is much more musical material still in archives. This could have easily been on the NWW-List. All images I used are courtesy of Peter Klencke and Bewth.

De Kikker (The Frog)

een zonnebloem / a sunflower
beloofde / promised
de sloot / the creek
haar kromming te vergeven / to forgive its curve

en de sloot / and the creek
huilde zo / cried so

de groene kikker / the green frog
was de kasteelman / was the castle owner
de hoogste van de sloot / the highest of the creek
altijd slapende / always asleep
op luchtige schalen / on breezy scales
vol wijdblad / on wide leaves
en zonder het minste / and without the least
ooievaargevaar / stork danger

de zonnebloem / the sunflower
kende ze allemaal / knew them all
en lachte soms / and sometimes laughed
als het zomer was / when it was summer

Highly Recommended!

Get it HERE

Wha-Ha-Ha - 女でよかった -1981- (7 Inch EP, Better Days), Japan

This is a pretty rare single only release by the crazed out Japanese experimental RIO synth jazz outfit Wha-Ha-Ha. They consisted a.o. of saxophonist Akira Sakata and singer Mishio Ogawa. Sakata recorded many strange albums and contributed to many artists like Kiyohiko Senba and His Haniwa All Stars and also participated in Gilbert Artman's Urban Sax project, the great French avant-garde multimedia saxophone orchestra.

Wha-Ha-Ha released two amazing albums in the early eighties as well as an EP.  Their material was also released in Europe on Recommended Records as a compilation. It's a weird combination of jazz, Rock In Opposition, Japanese melodies, pop songs, unexpected transitions and synthesizer sounds. They remind me a lot of Japanese RIO band After Dinner, also due to the female vocals. I recommend you to check out all the other Wha-Ha-Ha material.

The first song on this single was reissued as a bonus track on a CD in 2003, but the second song hasn't been re-released as far I know. Both of the songs do not appear on the albums.

Get it HERE

Unovidual & Friends - Vetganzen In Jacquet -1984- (Tape, Stichting Stopcontact), Belgium

Time for another Minimal Synth cassette Jewel(!): Unovidual is the moniker of Belgian (Flemish) electronic music hometaper Henk Wallays. He was (is) part of the Micrart Group (a.o. Linear Movement, Twilight Ritual) and hosted an underground radio show called 'Stalhwerksynfonie' (after Die Krupps) in the early eighties. Wallays soon created the cassette label 3rio with Sandy Nys of Magisch Theater and Dirk Ivens of Absolute Body Control. Also he played in the band Tangible Joy and worked together intensively with US hometaping artist Tara Cross (featured on Minimal Wave's The Lost Tapes etc).

Vetganzen In Jacquet (Penguins in morning-coat jacket) is a very rare cassette that was published on the Dutch Stichting Stopcontact label, which was run by Ruud Kluivers (Doxa Sinistra). The label had legendary releases such as the Contactdisc compilation series and the Tranquil Eyes tape Walks (1985). I did not know there were more cassettes out there on this label, like the one here. I found out the cassette is from 1984 because of this catalogue.

The A-Side of this tape displays quite some dark wonky and occasionally humorous Minimal Synth sounds. It even contains a few songs with Dutch vocals. I do not know whether the pseudonyms (instruments?) written on the cassette cover were actually the collaborating Friends or that those friends are of a conceptual nature (probably he did work together with people). The B-Side starts with a lengthy track called Kankende Doctrines and has much heavier dancefloor potential. The last two songs La Romantise and A Thoughtful End are two amazing Minimal Synth tracks reminding me of acts on the Dutch Trumpett label (André de Koning, Ende Shneafliet), Asmus Tietchens his Sky Records series, but also Enzo Kreft, 5ive Ximes Of Dust, 18:e Oktober and ofcourse Autumn.

Vetganzen In Jacquet is great synth driven wave stuff complete with 808 drums, buzzing synths, home-crafted weirdness, ambient insanity, darkwave moods and more. A pearl from the Belgian 80's Minimal Synth scene everybody seems to be crazy about. What more do you want?

Hopefully someone can help us find Unovidual's other hyperrare cassettes! (Reissue labels?!)

Highly Recommended!

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Palinckx & Palinckx - Maartse Buien -1984- (LP, Traction Avant), Netherlands

Jacques Palinckx (1959, Tilburg) is a Dutch Jazz and Impro guitarist and composer. He played a.o. with Guus Janssen septet, Maarten Altena Ensemble, Beukorkest, Big Bamboozle and improvised with Free-Jazz and improvisation musicians like Fred van de Hove, Evan Parker, Lol Coxhill, John Zorn, Christian Marclay, Daan Vandewalle, Peter van Bergen, Keith Rowe, Joseph Bowie, Gerry Hemmingway, Eugene Chadbourne.

During the early eighties the impro outfit Palinckx & Palinckx was established with brother Bert Palinckx (Bass), Frank van Oosterhout (Drums) and Hans Sparla (Trombone). This first album came out on the Dutch Traction Avant label, which was a sublabel of Eksakt Records. It was established to showcase the more serious Modern Composed and Jazz side of the label.

Maartse Buien is a Jazz album indeed, even more so Jazz in a very Dutch manner. Maartse Buien is the Dutch name for the typical Dutch rainfall during the month of March (and April). Because of the bad rainy climate of The Netherlands the rainfall during this period is often accompanied by hail and snow, creating different states of water pouring from the sky unexpectedly. The title track on the album reflects the mood during this period quite well, reminding me a lot of Louis Andriessens's Golven (Waves) soundtrack which is about the Dutch North Sea. It also hints a bit towards music on the Belgian Igloo label. Palinckx was included on this compilation I posted before.

The entire album consists of jazz that transcends into more experimental improvisational stuff, almost creating cinematographic pieces. Some of the pieces are quite beautiful. The improvisation scene of The Netherlands always merges trained classical and jazz music, with distinct Dutch melodies and anarchic improvisation (examples could be: Instant Composers Pool, The Ex, Han Bennink, Misha Mengelberg, Nine Tobs, Willem Breuker etc etc).

Although March is not here yet... it will come in a blink of an eye. We are bracing ourselves here in Holland!

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Peter Roos - Klimax -1983- (LP, Private Pressing), Sweden

This is a very obscure self-made minimal synth wave record from one Peter Roos from Sweden. He published this record of which the cover is hand-made out of cardboard in very small quantities. Some information written by Peter Roos I found on Discogs:

Hi, the thing is that I ordered 500 vinyls. only around 150 copies came out to market. Every single sleeve is handmade..most by me, but also my girlfriend and another friend at the time. Think we managed around 200. So I still have some left. In the late 90´s I threw away many(just the record)´cause no interest at all in many years and needed some space. Lately there has been some interest and have also given away to charity. Kind regards. Peter Roos. 

This record has a very distinct "home-made" solo-project feeling to it. Some of the songs are quite experimental whilst others are a bit poppy. It does have something contemporary to it as well. Most songs have vocals in Swedish. It reminds me a bit of the Venezuelan private wave record by Vinicio Adames that I posted some time ago. I think that the drumcomputer used on Klimax has to be a Soundmaster SR-88, one of the greatest and most primitive drum machines from the early eighties (also used by The Actor for example).

Peter Roos made one other self-released album in 1984. His primitive electronic music can be placed within the Swedish DIY scene of the eighties next to Njurmännen, 18:e Oktober, Porno Pop Moon Family, Konduktör Records bands etc. It's just not as dark as many of those acts. Nevertheless a great album!

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