Thomas Girke - Elektronik Musik -1983- (Cassette, Togi Music), Germany

 Merry Christmas to all friends and followers of the blog!

Is that an image of the Brooklyn Bridge with the Twin Towers in New York? Can't really figure out the angle of the photo though. Ofcourse those towers were already there decades before they got used to scam us into the new millennium. But whether this image is a correct depiction of the skyline is quite unclear. Actually it doesn't really matter. All we care for is that those UFO's high up there in the sky were real! The rest is basically constructed around them. Skyscrapers, UFO's, modern metropoles: some key signs of the future in one depiction. Needless to say that within such a vision Thomas Girke from West-Berlin created a wonderful and futuristic soundtrack.

Elektronik Musik is a piece of Berlin School analog electronics on the synth-pop and minimal synth side of the spectrum. Analog arpeggiators, keyboard melodies, electronic syncopations and drum computer rhythms take us on a neon-light disco journey across the elektronik sky by way of China Town into synthetic dreams in time and space.

Quick get on board of the UFO! I heard those aliens have a space dancefloor and they are spinning some Italo disco records. Might have heard some Patrick Cowley and Stratis up there in the sky. Is that Magic Fly by Space now?! Abandon earth!

Get it HERE

Viktimized Karcass - Skinned Alive -1987- (Cassette, Sound Of Pig - SOP 86), US

 

Viktimized Karcass was an experimental underground band from Memphis, Tennessee that was strongly embedded in the cassette culture of the 80's. The band consisted of Chris Phinney (founder of the Harsh Reality cassette label), Michael Thomas Jackson, Richard Martin, Robert Henson and Roger Moneymaker. The music consists of psychedelic jams, electronic experimentation, tape-loops and other improvised sounds. Most of the members were also involved in solo projects and contributed immensely to the shaping of the cassette culture of home-tapers. Viktimized Karcass released many cassettes on a variety of international cassette labels. 

Skinned Alive was released through Sound Of Pig, a pivotal cassette culture label from New York that was created by Al Margolis (aka If, Bwana). There are some far out space rock jams on here. It reminds me a bit of Smersh or Sponge. Wonderful stuff.

Kindly donated by The Y Create Archive

Get it HERE

Various Artists - Καθαρος - Emanation: Treasure The Fertile Soil In This Barren Land, And Receive -1986- (Cassette, Katharos Foundation), Netherlands

 

The Katharos Foundation was a collective of audio-visual artists and musicians from Tilburg, The Netherlands, established in February 1986. They used performative, conceptual and multi-media aspects in their work which incorporated transgressive elements. There were different musical guises of which a notable one was the industrial Sluagh Ghairm. That band would later turn into the tribal techno act Psychick Warriors Ov Gaia which would gain both domestic and international fame. Some band members were apparently part of Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth.

During the phase of the Katharos Foundation exhibitions and concerts took place a.o. alongside bands like Étant Donnés, Coup de Grace and Zombies Under Stress. The Katharos Foundation also functioned as an imprint releasing a number of cassette compilations during their short existence. All in all they can be viewed as another group of industrial culture representatives in The Netherlands.

Καθαρος - Emanation: Treasure The Fertile Soil In This Barren Land, And Receive is a compilation that brings together the different acts under the Katharos umbrella. It displays industrial electronics, home recordings, live recordings and performance sounds. It came with a large booklet with artwork which unfortunately is not included here.

 Kindly donated by The Y Create Archive

Get it HERE

Naomi N'Uru - Wurm -1989- (LP, Überschall Records), Germany

 

Naomi N'Uru was a project by Caroline Frerichs and Rasmi Nithokar from the Northern German town of Bremerhaven. They released a couple of cassettes as well as this record and a CD. They also recorded under the name Cosmic Dance Society which I highly recommend to check out. 

The music on Wurm consists of late EBM style music with lots of cut-ups, sampling and strange transitions. Occasionally it becomes a little more melodic gothic wave-like, but maintains its EBM core. Ofcourse iconic bands like Front 242 or Front Line Assembly come to mind, but it mostly fits that 80's into the 90's transition phase on the still more industrial side of the electronic music spectrum.

The record was hand-numbered and quite a fragile pressing. My copy was a bit warped unfortunately so the sound quality isn't the greatest throughout. 

Get it HERE

Regicide Bureau #12 - A Rose Of Beds, In The Cross Of The Sign -1988- (Cassette, Regicide Bureau), US

 

Regicide Bureau was a home-taping project and label from Overland, Saint Louis, Missouri created by Thomas Sutter. By himself and together with other befriended musicians Sutter released numerous cassettes throughout the 80's and 90's. The majority of those cassettes were never for sale and could only be obtained by exchanging cassettes. The Regicide Bureau was an important force and institution within the global home-taping cassette culture which created an autonomous music infrastructure far away from the commercial music industry. Associated acts that included Tom Sutter were a.o. Next Radio, Drive!Hesaid, Regimental Anguish and Berlin Diary (with the Berlin based musician M. Finnkrieg during Sutter's time residing in Berlin).

A Rose Of Beds, In The Cross Of The Sign (nice word scramble) is a bit different than most Regicide Bureau tapes I've heard because it doesn't display the characteristic alchemical sound of electronics, synthesizers, vocals and tape collage. Instead the recording consists of four improvised pieces of electric guitar loops played by Tom Sutter technically assisted by Dave Schuey. The sound is rather minimalistic, lo-fi and hypnotic.

I just found out you can listen and download the latest 2022 release by Regicide Bureau over here on the Nostalgie De La Boue label. Tom Sutter honestly did some remarkable music over the past decades and still goes strong.

Lastly, I think some more uneasy listening and darker stuff is coming to the blog towards the end of the year because that happens to be in the pipeline at the moment. Perhaps it suits the times we are facing.

Get it HERE

Kindly donated by The Y Create Archive

Mail Muzak (A.D. Eker & Misao Kusumoto) - The Art Of Sound For Slaves Of Obedience -1984- (Cassette, Soft Joke Productions), Netherlands/Japan

 

This is a short double-sided cassette which was the result of a collaboration between A.D. Eker (a Dutch musician from the city of Zwolle and founder of the experimental music collective and label De Fabriek) and Japanese artist Misao Kusumoto from Nishinomiya City. A.D. Eker also had his own label called Soft Joke Productions under which a number of short home-taping cassettes, including the one here, were published.

The Art Of Sound For Slaves Of Obedience was a conceptual piece of mail-art music, exchanged between The Netherlands and Japan. The lyrics that were used were translated from Japanese to Dutch and from English to Japanese. The question being asked on this tape is: what is quality anyways?

What is quality, and who fixed the form.
What is quality, and who fixed the form.

Is it as one says or is it yet different.
Is it as one sees, or do you see different.
Is it different, because one feels so.

What is quality, and who fixed the form.
What is quality, and who fixed the form.

Is it different, because one says so.
Is it different, because one sees so.
Is it different, because one feels so.

What is quality, and who guards the norm.
What is quality, and who guards the norm.

Is it the gross, that only looks at T.V.
Is it the gross, that always says no, no, no.
It it the gross, that looks so O.K.

What is quality, and who guards the norm.
What is quality, and who guards the norm.

Who ever decided, quality is no norm.
Who ever decided, quality is.
Who ever decided, quality is not.
No one rules okay, as you see!

Get it HERE

From the collection Allard Pierson/NPI

Gnot - Encyclopedia Galactica -1994- (Cassette, Self-Released), Netherlands

 

OCCII Amsterdam 30th Anniversary celebration post!

OCCII (Onafhankelijk Cultureel Centrum In It) is one of Amsterdam's last standing autonomous cultural venues that revolves around the elements of inclusivity, DIY action and a wide variety of live music as well as political and social activities. Besides local indie bands, jazz or world music it's also a home for free improvisation, psychedelic electronics, noise, punk and much more. OCCII emerged from the Amsterdam squatting scene of the 80's and later gained a legal status. It slowly but surely established itself as one of the true free spaces for music heads in town built on community principles.

Thanks to its many volunteers, it has a consistent weekly program of music, children's activities, workshops and talks. Throughout the last 30 years OCCII as a venue has gained a cult status among many international underground musicians that came to play. Simultaneously it has built a broad audience that reaches far beyond Amsterdam. To celebrate the 30th anniversary today, the 14th of September 2022, it's time to share a live recording from the early days of the venue. Moreover, there are not many recordings from that early period, so if someone happens to have any other material from that time feel free to get in touch.

Gnot was an Amsterdam based ever-changing free improvisation and noise rock collective founded by Arjan van Sorge that was active throughout the 90's. During their live performances they also added a few theatrical and dance elements. Encyclopedia Galactica is a live recording of Gnot at OCCII Amsterdam that took place on September the 30th, 1994. On this occassion the band consisted of Arjan van Sorge (Drums), Bram Hessels (Guitar), Peter Verzijl (Guitar), Joe Williamson (Bass) and Pisti Benecz (synthesizer).

The concert was improvised and later divided into individual tracks with different titles and released privately on cassette in limited quantities. It's a little relic from the 90's underground scene of Amsterdam when free improvisation had its connection with the local squatting scene and different artist communes as well as autonomous (pirate) radio stations while the soil was being laid down for local underground venues like OCCII. Some other impro-noise acts from around those days were the Amsterdam based ex-Yugo acts of a.o. Gone Bald and De Reizende Verkoper and ofcourse the many ofshoot acts of the late great The Ex.

Long live the OCCII! 

This post is dedicated to everyone that has played a part at OCCII over the last 30 years.

Check out OCCII Amsterdam today.

From the collection Allard Pierson/NPI

Get it HERE

Seemen - Woozy! -1991- (Cassette, Self-Released), US

 

Originally from Austin, Texas, Seemen is the collaborative effort of Kal Spelletich and some forty odd art drop outs and extreme technology inventors who enjoy building extreme machines and robots that they allow their audience to operate. 

Since the late 80's and 90's Spelletich has been doing performances with Seemen and the notorious Survival Research Laboratories. Through the extremes of technology, the building of giant metal robots, pyrotechnics and other inventive dangerous constructions many incredible installations have graced both festivals and urban wastelands. Simultaneously the musical output connected to that has been an important element. Inevitably the clinging of metal, fire and flames and other robotic mechanisms create sounds, Seemen also made some really special cassettes that were circulating in the home-taping culture.

Within that late 80's and early 90's realm quite some urban area's were not as gentrified as they are today thus able to provide some space for these greater machine endeavours. The art and its surroundings played an important role on each other. Not only because of the artistic nature, but also because the artists would sometimes work on these giant living sculptures and robots for months. Therefore many of the artists started to become part of the surrounding communities and meet people who, in their turn, would help on some of the projects and vice versa. For example during their time in Amsterdam a collective like Survival Research Laboratories helped barricading some squats showing support during their eviction. A performance art group like the Mutoid Waste Company in England started to engage with the free party rave scene. Eventually they even established their own village called Mutonia in Italy. These are just some examples, but there are many more stories. In the new millenium this type of art has moved to festivals because the neo-liberal globalized urban environment leaves less and less space to be engaged with.

Woozy! was a self-released cassette by Seemen from 1991. From the cover:

The Seemen don't want to be your traditional Rock-n-Roll band which follows traditional formats. The idea being to produce something creative and innovative. Traditions are made to be broken and broken they are. There is no reason to repeat history! To repeat yourself when you have mastered something means it's time to move on to something more challenging. The future of music isn't guitar solos and drum machines but the sound of a vacuum cleaner or a child laughing. If music is to progress it needs to go beyond The Format (percussion/rhythm/solo/vocal). The forbearers of THE NEW WILL not be the Euro-X-Dance Beat Generation but the intelligensia who are willing and ABLE to grow beyond what Chuck Berry accomplished 30 years ago.

Kindly donated by The Y Create Archive

Get it HERE

Square Sun (D. Trevarthen) / Royal Flush - Split Tape -1989- (Cassette, The Head Corporation/Black Death), Scotland/Netherlands

Here's an odd but great one. It took me some time to decipher this cassette since the cover kind of confused me at first. In any case it seems to be a split tape between Scottish home-taper Dion Trevarthen (also known as Square Sun) and Royal Flush, a home-taping act that was released by the Black Death tape label from the small town of Zoetermeer, The Netherlands. Black Death was created by Marcel Tuijenburg. A label which a.o. published compilations of the international home-taping community. The music on this cassette by Royal Flush seems to have been a solo effort by B. du Perron who creates a long dark ambient soundscape.

The other side of the tape consists of some dazzling hypnotic acid drenched electronic music by Dion Trevarthen. Hailing from the village of Aberlady, East Lothian, Trevarthen was part of a psychedelic space-rock group called Sponge along with his two brothers. He also released his own electronic music under the name Square Sun on various international tape labels. One of the most notable releases was the Tierversuche, Das Perfekte Konzept Der Selbstvernichtung tape on the German cassette label IRRE.

Fluorescent Tube Shadows is a mind-bending psychedelic piece of electronic home-taping music. There are many electronic textures, radio waves, rhythms and strange transitions going on. I recommend hearing this loud on some serious speakers and not just some screenspeakers. It has a very immersive deep sound that almost absorbs you. Within home-recordings it illustrates the transition of the 80's minimal synth sound into some of the new electronic music of the 90's, but somehow remains ungraspable. Some other acts that might be alike are Ras.Al.Ghul from Portugal or Delta-Sleep-Inducing Peptide from Germany. Or or or.

It would be great if some label would reissue some Square Sun music, but I guess it's wishful thinking.

Get Fluorescent Tube Shadows HERE

Kindly donated by the Y Create Archive

Various Artists - Warmth And Silence -1988- (Cassette, Epitapes), US/International

 

Here we have yet another compilation on Epitapes that was established by Mike Tetrault from Belchertown, Massachusetts. Throughout the 80's dozens of these compilations were created. Each compilation was based around a certain theme and assembled accordingly by Mike Tetrault. Some of the tracks were taken from existing releases while others were sent specially for these tapes. You can read an interesting interview about these cassette series with Mike Tetrault over here.

The title of this cassette "Warmth And Silence" already reveals the type of music that was selected for this compilation: subtle ambient experimental sounds for more than one hour and a half created by a large range of home-taping projects from around the globe. Present on here are quite a few more known cassette culture protagonists like Illusion Of Safety (Dan Burke, US), Hessel Veldman (Holland), DZ Lectric (France),  Hands To (Jeph Jarman, US) and Los Paranos (Christophe Petchanatz, France). 

A curiosity on this compilation is that Mike Tetrault also features a piece by himself in which delicate rhythms create a base for a whispered reading of André Breton's surrealist poem "Freedom Of Love".

Get it HERE

Kindly donated by the Y Create Archive

Kinder-Klons, Uwe Linke, Gefährliche Klons - The Kinderkram Tapes - Lost Tracks & Live (Cassettes 198X), Germany

The Gefährliche Klons (The Dangerous Clones) were a NDW band formed in the city of Marburg during the late 70's by the core duo of Uwe Linke and Exo Neutrino. They had many different Clone disguises and started to do their own music experiments inspired by Der Plan and the Geri Reig principle combining primitive electronic sounds with demented acoustic tunes and melodies while also using toys and other lost and found non-instruments.

These recordings are from an obscure collection of overdubbed NDW tapes I found at some point years ago. Too bad we can't see the original covers but chances are very small that we will ever see them. I couldn't find any information on these presumed cassette releases, not on Discogs nor on the Tape-Mag. In any case these recordings mostly collect the solo works by Uwe Linke who also did the Markenzeichen XY project as well as Kinder-Klons. A couple of these Kinder-Klons tracks were also collected on the extensive compilation cassette 40 Funkuchen that was released by Dutch cassette label Trumpett (from the small town of Heiloo), but some tracks are unknown.

Lastly I added an unknown live performance by The Gefährliche Klons from another one of those dubbed cassettes which now completes all the leftover material I have by them. However, it would be truly amazing if someone could provide some other unknown cassettes from their own Wir Wollen Nur Dein Bestes Bänder label.

Get all the leftover tunes HERE

Bicycle Repair Man - Recycling -1984- (Cassette, Red Rat Recordings), Netherlands

 

Bicycle Repair Man was a one-man home-taping project from the Southern Dutch city of Venray. I think it was a self-released project that was eventually distributed by the Red Rat Recordings cassette label from Utrecht that was created by Otto Grunbauer. The label had quite an extensive catalogue during its run, releasing many compilations as well as music by Merzbow, F/i and many others. However I'm not entirely sure how this cassette ended up on the label.

I assume the name Bicycle Repair Man was taken from a Monty Python's Flying Circus sketch, but who knows. The music consists of primitive analog electronics, Casio VL-Tone sounds, field recordings, cut-ups, radio fragments and other lost and found sounds in the the true home-taping spirit of the time. The opening piece Life In Berlin starts with John F. Kennedy's iconic speech from 1963 over some paranoid synth-patterns. Eventually the track alters into a cover of the Minny Pops' song R.U. 21? Minny Pops were a Dutch, Amsterdam based post-punk group and cornerstone act of the so called Ultra-scene. They were the only band in Dutch history that was signed to Factory Records during the 80's. The fact that songs by them were covered by home-tapers is another testimony to their influential music.

On the last track of this cassette by Bicycle Repair Man we learn that he also sent music to the Radiola Improvisatie Salon radio program which played a hugely important role for the home-taping scene in The Netherlands at the time. It was created by Dutch media wizard, fluxus artist and underground cult-figure Willem de Ridder. The idea of Radiola was that every tape that was sent to the radio show would be played without being heard in advance. A very unorthodox and adventurous approach that sometimes led to the discovery of unknown musicians and which simultaneously gave people who were playing music in their bedroom the feeling that their music was of importance because they were being played on national radio.

Bicycle Repair Man is another highly obscure project from the Dutch cassette culture of the 80's. It reminds me a bit of the electronic experiments by Arthur Berkhoff. 

From the collection Allard Pierson/NPI

Get it HERE

R. Murray Schafer, David Mott And The New Music Co-Op - Music As Transformation -1983- (Cassette, Musicworks 25), Canada

 

 

Here we have another cassette that was released by the Canadian magazine Musicworks that focused on Canadian avant-garde music since the late 70's. Musicworks was founded by Andrew Timar and John Oswald in Toronto. They released dozens of cassettes that accompanied the Musicworks magazine that published on the relation between science, technology, ecology, sonic environments and music.

Music As Transformation was assembled by composer and sound artist Tina Pearson in 1983. It features edits and excerpts by different Canadian composers involved with experimental music, field-recordings, abstract composition and also contains sequences of spoken discourses. Amongst some of the composers that are present are R. Murray Schafer, known for his concept of acoustic ecology, David Mott, a baritone saxophone player and composer from Toronto and Gordon Monahan, a Canadian pianist, visual and sound artist.

The compilation creates its own unfolding narrative blending natural field-recorded sounds with avant-garde composition within an existential or reflective framework based on the experience of environments and life-cycles. It takes the listener on a subtle transformative trip through sounds of folk traditions, water, rain, fire and other ecological elements weaving in and out of those sound-spaces constantly going back and forth from improvisation and electro-acoustic music into the dark yet sunbursting universe. 

A beautifully assembled piece that can't be titled anything else but Music As Transformation. It reminds me a bit of the music by Darren Copeland that was published on the blog some time ago. Even though the extensive tracklist is available, the cassette has been unindexed to maintain its natural flow.

Music As Transformation - The hypnotic focussing of the word mandala

Kindly donated by Matthew 

Get it HERE

Songs From Ward 6 - Self-Titled -198X- (Cassette, Slang Tapes), US

 

So I've posted something before that was on the mysterious Slang Tapes label, a US cassette label that was dedicated to strange humorous free-jazz and improvisation. That live improvisation cassette fell a little flat amidst all the home-taping music on this blog, but it was strange enough to share. I actually try to redefine that eternal crescendo of music posts of which one thing should be constantly better than the previous. In all actuality all of this musical output knows its own historical context, in its own place and time. There are different musical styles or approaches but a lot of it shares an underground ontology or a deviancy to whatever the dominant culture has been pushing. That's why it remains important that different types of music are represented on the blog. 

In any case, the previously shared Slang Tape release is very different from this one. That cassette came from Allentown, Pennsylvania, so I assumed that the label was based around that area as well. However there is no real confirmation. Also I don't know which musicians were actually part of the Songs From Ward 6 project.

Songs From Ward 6 is a stunning piece of American avant-garde music. It sort of balances on the minimal music tradition within modern composed music, jazz or other more trained musicianship traditions, but at the same time it's far out in its experimentation while displaying absurdistic lyrics and vocals. It also presents amazing crystal-like cosmic ambient synthesizer manoeuvres with a deep sound, creating different hypnotizing grooves. It eventually even ventures into some self-explored ethnic sounds. Not too far fetched from some of the more unclassifiable acts that were included on the NWW list.

I'm pretty sure that this was made in the early years of the 80's, but it clearly has some ground in the weird 60's or 70's music traditions too. From Silver Apples to Cromagnon and from Care of The Cow to the Los Angeles Free Music Society, the music by Songs From Ward 6 once again emphasizes the endless eclectic creativity and inventiveness of musical output that existed within the fringes of American underground music culture during the second half of the 20th century.

A great piece of lost music! Also any additional information on this would be highly appreciated!

Kindly donated by the Y Create Archive

Get it HERE

Liza N. Eliaz - Sensecruise Instrumentals Et Maquettes -1989- (Cassette, Self-Recorded), Belgium/France

 

Since this is the third time that I write about Liza N. Eliaz on this blog I will re-use some of the older texts:

Liza Néliaz (1958 - 2001) was an electronic dance music producer and hardcore techno (terror) DJ originally from Oostende, Belgium. During the late 70's Néliaz started out as musician part of different Belgian avant-garde and new-wave bands. In the 80's Neliaz become more involved with the international home-taping network and contributed her tracks to cornerstone compilations on pivotal cassette labels like Insane Music (Belgium) and Exart (Netherlands).

By the late 80's, Neliaz started to play a self-invented style of proto-dance music that somehow connected the DIY spirit of 80's home-taping with new beat and the upcoming rave culture that would later evolve into established genres like techno, hardcore and acid house. She was a pioneer (one out of many ofcourse) in exploring these new musical styles in which perhaps the most important element was musical continuity. From the 90's onward Liza 'N' Eliaz established herself as an important hardcore techno DJ in the free party spheres which granted her the underground title of Queen of Terror. The name Liza was adopted because in those days it used to be a nickname given to Trans people in Flanders. She used her abilities as a musician for her DJ-sets that were uncompromising, lethal and full of energy. Neliaz lived a nomadic lifestyle dedicated to music until the end of her life. She sadly passed away in 2001.

The cassette that has surfaced here is an odd one. It was dubbed on a blank tape and specially given to Hessel Veldman and his family by Liza during the late 80's when she resided in Holland. First of all it contains the instrumental versions of the first Sensecruise release (not sure if there are any non-instrumental versions since I don't own the "official" Sensecruise part 1 cassette, so can't verify - let me know!). The interesting part is that the cassette continues with some loose tracks that I can partially recognize by checking out other releases, but there are also some tracks that are unknown to me.

Still the fact remains that this is a remarkable set of songs from that late 80's Neliaz sound palette. Quite a treasure, because we repeatedly have no idea whether more music by Liza might be out there. You never know what survived on cassettes of her friends or whether some music was given to befriended DJ's from the time. Her later DJ mixes are still alive on many platforms on the web and seem to inspire many people today and beyond.

Kindly donated by the Y Create Archive

Get it HERE

Vermooste Vløten - Crankle -1996- (LP, Self-Released), Germany

 

Vermooste Vløten were a Berlin based female duo that consisted of Hannie Bluum and Libójah Shnukki that was active during the 90's. During the first decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall a new spirit reconnected the divided German capital giving birth to dozens of open spaces, buildings and (temporary) venues. Squats were still around as true city institutes, rent was relatively cheap, techno started blowing up, bars with GDR retro furniture in living-room atmospheres were created and gradually a whole new generation decided to start a living in the new alternative culture capital of Europe.

Within this new scenery lots of interesting local acts started to emerge out of Berliners and newly attracted Berliners. A living-room music movement unfolded fostering both the creation of music as well as concerts that were taking place in small circles. From lo-fi indie rock to punk to cut and paste DIY songwriting to simple und Schick toy organ electronics to surf, to bedroom pop or folk, anything was possible. This was a type of music that was in synergy with daily life, city vibrations, friendships, nightly leisure and so on, not so much with an aim to play big stages or to gain a larger audience.

Vermooste Vløten was one of those amazing bands from the time. Channeling a bit of the earlier underground sounds from Berlin in the 70's and 80's and backed up by Nikki Sudden of Swell Maps as the producer they made their first album Crankle in 1996. A really nice home-made indie album full of sweet melancholic songs, a rebellious attitude, Velvet Underground and Nico infused moods and delicate experimentation. Even John Peel picked up on them at the time. 

As a female duo they stand in a great tradition of other female underground acts from Berlin, from Nina Hagen to bands like Malaria!, Carambolage or 3 Tot in the 80's to Barbara Morgenstern or Cobra Killer in the 90's. All those sounds surely even created the subconscious fertile soil for a band like 2Raumwohnung later on. In past years it has continued in the Berlin underground with acts like Die Schiefe Bahn or As Longitude. But ofcourse there are countless other female acts to mention. Let's hope it will all carry on as it should. I'm sure it will though.

Vermooste Vløten made a second album in the 90's that is equally great and has more electronic influences. Reissues? Compilations of the Berlin living-room scene? 

Something more light-hearted during these tough times....

Get it HERE

Various Artists - Swamptape Compilation 2 - Swamp-To-Tape -1990- (Cassette, Hahamandad), Netherlands/International

Despite the recent ongoing tragic events that are taking place in an already dystopian world, the difficulty of finding the right answers and figuring out what to do I finally decided to keep posting music here anyway. Whether as a distraction, as medicine, as fuel to power up or to let off steam and anger. Some strange sounds might help to cope with a strange world. In any case, I wish everyone lots of strength and courage out there. -

The Swamptape Compilation 2 (Swamp-To-Tape) was assembled during 1988/89 and released by Hahamandad in 1990 with a magazine called 'Vision'. Hahamandad is a foundation and a label from the Southern Dutch city of Axel (in the province of Zeeland) that was founded by Messy and Amanda Man (Leo van de Velde) in 1984. The Hahamandad foundation also organized numerous festivals around alternative culture, art and played an important role in bringing together different international underground and home-taping musicians. They released dozens of cassettes of both their own music projects and international compilations.

The Swamptape Compilation 2 is a nice and varied release with some known and lesser known artists of the international cassette culture. There are some home-made minimal synth songs by Messy, Kees Beukelaar and Nostalgie Eternelle, some dark industrial pieces by Big City Orchestra, Clemp Yod as well as some dazzling hypnotic tracks by Ambulatorio Segreto, From Nursery To Misery and Mystery Hearsay. Also: much(!) more.

 

Get your tunes from the swamp HERE

Kindly donated by The Y Create Archive