Various Artists - Truuktape -1984- (Cassette, Truuktape), Netherlands

Here is another totally obscure compilation of cassette-culture from The Netherlands on Truuktape (Trick Tapes). It compiles Dutch and Belgian home-taping artists of which some are known and others have sank into obscurity. Present on the compilation are: Unovidual (Flemish home-taper Henk Wallays who played great minimal synth), Totallos, Zyklon B, Oefening Kunstbaardt (mythical Rotterdam project that released one of the most sought after 7 inches of the Dutch minimal synth underground), Johan Schaaphok, Bert vd Kerk, Jan vd Einden and Lorraine.Tru.

It's a great compilation that really displays the Dutch underground zeitgeist of the period. Half of it is electronic minimal synth experimentation and the other half is collage and experimental tunes with subversive poetry and such. On the B-Side there is a moment that we hear the Dutch former queen Beatrix speak to the parliament about the greatness of the country. Within the Dutch squatting scene and punk circles it was very common to ridicule the monarchy. During her inaugaration in 1980 a war broke out on the streets of Amsterdam between squatters and the state. The riots were known as Geen Woning, Geen Kroning, meaning No House, No Coronation. Even the Dutch army had to intervene at a certain point. It was a time when alternative lifestyles and anti-authoritarianism were peaking in Holland, the legendary Staaltape shop (dedicated to DIY cassettes) was right around the corner of the Royal Palace on the Dam Square of Amsterdam and half of the city was squatted and inhabited by underage punks and junkies. A moment of a no-future mentality, nearly no employment for the youth plus the threat of nuclear warfare between the big East and West powers.

Truuktapes apparently hailed from Amsterdam and did this great compilation combining the forces of the musical DIY-attitude from those days and capturing a certain mentality just by using the right political and poetic sound bits and pieces. A way of undermining control, sharing a certain mentality with the listener and displaying the little means you need to be creative. This truly shows the power of the home-taping scene and the cassette as medium. You start playing the cassette and you get surprised by a collage of musical madness of empowering nature that you can tap into immediately and contribute to the same day. It's not made to be the greatest music, it's a message.

I left this cassette unindexed in its A and B side because there is no tracklist available and I don't know which band is which. Also in its statement as a collage of many sounds and tracks I present this here in its purest cassette form. As a compilation. Without knowing what to expect. It reminds me a bit of the pirate radio squat tape I uploaded a long time ago.

"I plant a knife in the ribcage of conscience, in the twist of thought of the executive power of the constitution, let's tolerate the fellow man like we were once cherished by the motherboard of desire. Let's cut the throat of the damage that always disposes us. Let's humiliate ourselves by self-destruction and torments of our souls. Let's become crazy and give ourselves to institutions or to the Russians near the Maas River. Give me a gun and I'll kill the queen and hurt morals.... etc".

The shock effect in writing is the impotence of poetry.

From the Collection Allard Pierson/NPI

Get it HERE / Mirror link

S·Core - Senile Decay -1987- (Cassette, De Koude Oorlog! I.U.04), Japan/Netherlands

Here we have one of the last tapes by S·Core that wasn't available so far to my knowledge. S·Core was the project by Japanese industrial musician Yutaka Tanaka. He released many cassettes during the 80's of which some were released on his own Afflict label. This cassette is an exception because it was released on the Dutch De Koude Oorlog! (The Cold War!) label, a small cassette label from Den Helder that was quite industrial oriented releasing artists like Dikyl Brobojo and Szarkov.

S·Core's music is a nice example of Japanese industrial music that isn't just pure noise. Tracks vary from rhythmic analog industrial sounds in an Esplendor Geométrico (Spain) or Mesh (Australia) way to dark ambient pieces. It somehow relates a bit to Zoviet-France, early Muslimgauze or music I can recall from the amazing Vanity Records label from Japan. S·Core is not musically active anymore, but he released material until the late 90's. I'm not sure how this material ended up on this Dutch cassette label, also not sure whether he was touring in The Netherlands. In any case this is another piece of the S·Core puzzle. Specially the rhythmic tracks are quite nice. Also a good title for the times we are facing I suppose... You can find most other S·Core tapes over here.

This tape was limited to 50 copies.

From the collection Allard pierson/NPI

Get it HERE

Gundel - Böse!! -198X- (Cassette, Self-Released), Germany

Here we have another obscure release from the German tape underground. Gundel was the project of the Düsseldorf based home-taper Gerrit Nowatzki. He was also in the experimental noise rock band Spalanzanis Töchter with Thomas Kallweit. Under the name Gundel Nowatzki released a couple of tapes during the second half of the 80's. You can find his other tape Macht Musik over at Tape Attack for example.

The music of Gundel on Böse!! (Angry, evil: however you want to read it) brings together an interesting combination of folk, rock and both ambient and experimental electronic sounds. Actually the quality of the recording is pretty high-standard. It seems to incorporate a certain musical dept into the release that includes some darker song-writing, piano play, flutes and other instrumental details. Maybe it's somewhat inspired by the less industrial side of Einstürzende Neubauten, but it also slighty reminds me of Circles or Strafe Für Rebellion. A sort of late 80's German sound that obtains more folk and dark ambient influences, moving away from the NDW Wahnsinn approach that was more common before. It's balancing somewhere on the thin line of writing a more serious album and home-taping experimentation.

Get it HERE

Lehr, Latzgo, Bauer, Hassay, Whitman Quintet - Donny's Hot For... -1983- (Cassette, Slang Tapes), US

Here we have an obscure cassette by an American free-jazz and improvisation quintet comprised of pianist Donald Lehr, saxophone players Gary Hassay and Todd Whitman, Tom Latzgo on horns and electric guitar and Tom Bauer on bass. Apparently the outfit came from Allentown, Pennsylvania: the same city where these live recordings were done in 1982 and 1983.

Donny's Hot For... consists of some nice spontaneous live recordings of improvised jazz sessions that took place within intimate settings in Allentown. Surely these musicians played more often with each other. Their free-improvisation sound contains theatrical elements and humor instead of a deep and serious avant-garde attitude.

For the rest I can't find much information on the different musicians included here, except for Gary Hassay, who seems to have collaborated quite often with the Japanese impro percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani during the 90's. The label of this tape Slang Tapes is a mystery to me, but seems to have been closely connected to the musicians as we can hear a jolly interview with them at the end of the first side of the tape showing their light-hearted approach to this release.

In the middle of all the post-punk, wave and home-taping cassettes I've been posting to the blog, here's a moment of unknown jazz improvisation from the US, surely finding its way to some interested listeners on that particular side of the musical spectrum.

Kindly donated by the Y Create archive

Get it HERE / Mirror



PS.
So what are we doing with Zippyshare? Is half of the world still not able to get the files? I started mirroring some links on Sharezynga, is that working? Is there a better free alternative? Feel free to say something about file-hosting or share ideas to help out.

Various Artists - Industrial Asylum -1983- (Cassette, WW Tapes WC5), Netherlands/UK

Industrial Asylum is a punk and post-punk compilation that was released in The Netherlands in 1983. It mostly (if not only) contains obscure English bands. I actually doubt that there is a Dutch band on here. It displays one of those characteristics of punk compilations which is to focus on a particular country, region or city and gather the various punk forces from that one place. Here some obscure groups from England were gathered to be heard by a Dutch punk audience. But aside from this cassette being released in Holland, I think most of these tracks are (and were) also quite hard to find and to hear in Britain so the release has an importance in itself.

The compilation gathers some nice post-punk and power-pop tunes, some anarcho-punk poetry, but also experimental sounds. The poems of Andy T moniker of punk poet Andrew Thorley are a returning theme on the cassette, he also released a great EP on Crass Records which he recorded in collaboration with Penny Rimbaud during the early 80's. The Manchester band Outer Edge kicks off this compilation with an energetic tune. They were also compiled on the legendary Manchester post-punk compilation Unzipping The Abstract from 1980, but aside from that I never heard other material by them. Wigan based band The System seems to be an anarcho punk group that's a bit more known. They were resurrected in the past years. The band Sons Of Earth play a weird cover of The Doors' Hello I Love You entitled 'The End'. For the rest I don't know much about the bands on here.

Some of the interesting tunes are played by bands like Untermensch, Giraffe In Flames and Oracle. Maybe someone has more information on these bands or has more recorded material. In any case this is another rare compilation of English punk and post-punk bands and is transmitting some strong musical energy here and there. The recordings are somewhat lo-fi in quality, but I think that only strengthens the punk nature.

From the collection Allard Pierson/NPI

Get it HERE