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 

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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

R-27 - Activity 1987-1988 -1989- (Cassette, Anti-Musik Der Landsh), Poland

R-27 (initially Fragments of R-27) was an underground improvisational and experimental avant-garde music group from Kraków that was active during the second half of the 80's. They were comprised of Rafael Kozub (keyboards and percussion instruments, singing, compositions), Damian Kozub (drums, voice, piano, compositions), Rafał " Walek "Walczowski (bass), Piotr" Buzer "Łabuzek (trumpet, voice, synthesizer) and Pawel" Rudy "Ochel (guitar, voice). The band gave many concerts in their native Kraków (Klub Podwawelski, Nowohuckie Centrum Kultury, Klub Wola Zoo, Dworek Białoprądnicki etc..) as well as some concerts in other Polish cities.

The Polish underground from the 80's was generally influenced by two traditions. One side was the jazz tradition that was very developed in Poland after the Second World War during the communist period. There was a large output of Polish jazz and international jazz artists came to play many annual festivals. From there on jazz-rock and prog-rock cross-overs opened the doors for even more abstract and stranger forms of music that due to their nature were not banned and identified as clear political revolt. Towards the 80's the jazz and improvisation traditions kept evolving in the underground with bands like Reportaż, Kirkut Koncept or 13 -11. 

The other side of the spectrum consisted of new music influences that gradually had found their (secret) way into the Polish underground. The improvisational groups were now also accompanied by new wave bands, punks, industrial noise makers and everything in-between. Quite a strong grey and bleak accent was being put in the music, reflecting the last bleak decade of communist totalitarian repression. Obviously some small cracks in the totalitarian regime were already showing and there was a bit of a decrease of cultural repression to be felt, but nevertheless general society was still rough and gloomy during late 80's Poland. A series like Dekalog by director Krzysztof Kieślowski gives an interesting insight in the depressing existential crisis of Polish society at the time. A feeling that in a way was commonly felt in different countries behind the iron curtain. The musical underground can largely be regarded as non-existent compared to that dominant society, that's how marginal things were.

To return to R-27 we can hear some of this existential crisis in the music. The band was formed by amateur musicians that combined different elements of free-jazz, electronics and poetry based on their own subtleties, feelings and expressions. The mood, the state of mind and inspiration came from their own environment: the underground community of Kraków. R-27 released a couple of cassettes in very limited quantities. Most of the recordings are very primitive and lo-fi in quality reflecting their technical means at the time. 

Activity 1987-1988 was released on the legendary Polish underground cassette label Anti-Musik Der Landsh in the limited quantity of 30 copies and was dedicated to Charlie Mingus.

I'm living Still
At once time, I come
here, but I didn't know,
where I went
At once time I came
here, in order to take
a rest in the shadows
of the trees
And now we ask
What for I'm living
still
And that only I'm
living still,
although my soul
chose the shadow
And so, how can it be
so... - Buzer

Get it HERE

The Lost Attic WegWerpTapes (aka TLAWWT) - Self-Titled -1985- (LP, Self-Released), Netherlands

The Lost Attic was a Dutch experimental music and home-taping project by Berry Rikkerink (who sadly passed away around 2008) and in this case someone named Lupie from Groningen. Rikkerink also had the project Technological Aquiver and released different weird cassettes on his Wegwerptapes (throw-away tapes) label like Interprovinsjale Sweinen. He also had close ties to the Dutch home-taping group De Fabriek as well as some collaborations with Kapotte Muziek. 

The Groningen home-tapers were specially deranged in their approach when you hear their material and were also strongly embedded in the squatting scene of Groningen at the time. During the 80's the Dutch squatting scene played a hugely important role for the youth that lacked future perspectives in an ideologically divided grey and dark Europe. The Netherlands is a small country with too many people, meaning there is not enough space. It has a messed up social housing system and non-affordable rents, specially for young people. The squatting scene was built from the necessity to live. Ofcourse, as a result, it was always very politically engaged and even militant at times, and by doing so also succeeded in providing space for creative experimentation, art and lots of madness between the margins. For some people squatting saved their life, some people just sympathized with squatting while others only profited from it. Something that comes with any form of free space and inclusive and open projects in general. Many important modern cultural institutions and concert halls in The Netherlands once started as squats or have some ties with squatting starting already since the 60's, but this narrative has largely been wasted with time.

The Lost Attic WegWerpTapes is another important album of the Dutch home-taping network of the 80's. It was mastered by Nico Seelen aka O.R.D.U.C. and shows that tape music can also be pressed on vinyl, why not? It's a great example of experimental anti-music with electronic noises, casio keyboards, rastaman vibrations(!), improvised jam sessions, humor as well as a punk attitude not too happy about the Dutch monarchy (Trix Ga Naar Huis). A little bit of everything. Just some recordings on tapes, thrown away somewhere in a lost attic... A great record! It was re-released by De Fabriek during the 90's.

More info on Wegwerptapes and such is to be found in the vast archive of No Longer Forgotten Music.

Get it HERE

José Iges & Concha Jerez - El Diario De Jonás -1997- (CD, Unió Musics), Spain

 

To bring in some music from other realms I think it's nice to start this blog-year off with a longer piece of music that creates a different listening experience than let's say a cassette compilation.  

El Diario De Jonás was a multi-disciplinary soundwork from 90's Spain that was written and imagined by the artists, scholars and music composers José Iges and Concha Jerez. At the end of the 80's they started collaborating on a series of projects called "Media Interference" that were combinations of audiovisual pieces, crossmedia concerts and performances. 

In line with these artworks the piece El Diario De Jonás was created in the 90's with contemporary experimental musicians Belma Martín (voice), Pilar Subirá (percussion) and Pedro López (live electronics). Martín and López were founders of the Madrilenian CEDI Institute for improvisation and sound-research and published a magazine on music called Hurly Burly during the 90's. The musicians also released music on the Spanish Modisti label that tried to operate on the intersection of music theory, politics and free music expression.

El Diario De Jonás was recorded live on 27-9-97 at Las Cuevas de Canelobre (caves of Canelobre) in Busot, Alicante as part of the 13th International Festival of Contemporary Music of Alicante. The release was supported by the Counsel of Mallorca. Partially performance, partially soundscape and partially sound-poetry (in Spanish and French) El Diario De Jonás is an interesting piece of Spanish music from the 90's. It reminds me a bit of the Galvana album by Victor Nubla and Pelayo Fernandez Arrizabalaga from 1992. 

From the liner notes:

"This work is shaped as a personal diary developed on internalized fragments. For that it's integrated by different episodes, linked from a certain subjectivity than the "diary" gender always suggests. Likewise, the understanding, the inverted commas or underlined, the monologue truncated on a word or the design or the linguistic gesture takes part of the expressive strategies of the piece. Making it we have gone to the bottom of our memories, on a time of speed and forgetfulness. As a Diary, its structure is given rather from the physical support -the diary- and from the graphy of the person that writes it. {..} The work is developed with three musicians performing live - a singer, an acoustic percussionist and an electronic percussionist, plus organized sound taped on 4 sources. All the material for the interpreters arised from 40 sentences, memories expressed orally, 20 coming from each one of the two authors. Different types of visual, phonetical and even semiotical interpretations of the sentences generated the ways in which the piece was performed. The modular apect assured that it would sound mainly the same during each performance yet always differ and show unprevisible elements." 

Due to the nature of this release no download link yet.

Various Artists - Polish Road, Vol. 1 & 2 - Alternative Polish Scene -1989- (2x Tape, Organic), Poland/France

Here we have one of the pivotal compilations covering the Polish underground from behind the iron curtain during the 80's. It came out right before the change of the political system in Eastern Europe in 1989 on a French label. Obviously many of these bands only released their music marginally in their own circuits. They had to operate in the underground because of their subversive nature and artistic expression directly or indirectly opposing the socialist regime. Poland had a longer history of underground bands and artists fitting that realm already in the early 70's, with examples like the mythical psychedelic band 74 Grupa Biednych and improvisers like Grupa W Składzie. The Polish music underground has always been heavily inspired by Jazz and improvisation. Also more known bands from Poland that were accepted by the regime during the 70's like Niemen or SBB were quite experimental in their approach. Polish jazz played a hugely influential role behind the iron curtain during the 60's and 70's and became a trademark of adventurous quality jazz. 

During the 80's a broader underground had emerged in different Polish cities. The improvisational groups were now accompanied by new wave bands, punks, industrial noise makers and everything in-between. Quite a strong grey and bleak accent was being put in the music, reflecting the last bleak decade of communist totalitarian repression. More and more Polish music was slowly finding its way to the west by cassettes that were swapped as well through Polish dissidents that made their way to the west of Europe. One of the greatest post-punk bands that had a Polish singer (Andrej Dziubek Nebb) was Holy Toy from Norway. Their first album Warszawa (Warsaw) still stands as one of the strongest experimental new-wave albums from the 80's and incorporates a strong Polish component. 

Now that I think about it, even Joy Division was called Warsaw at first ofcourse. In the imagination of wave bands and punks from the west during the 80's Poland was definitely the epitome of bleakness and a symbol of the east-west schism that was casting its darkening shadow over Europe including the threat of nuclear warfare. This was pushing the no-future mentality even further in the heads of many youngsters. Subsequently theme's like the Warsaw-Pact were often used by western wave bands from the 80's. But let's get back to this release:

Polish Road was one of those important compilations for Polish bands to be heard in the west  spreading their underground sounds. It's a very nice, although heavily fragile, recording of different bands ranging from punk, wave, industrial and improvisation groups. It was released as a double cassette in a VHS case. The first volume consists of more experimental and punk groups, while the second volume has more improvised and electro-acoustic bands on it of which Reportaz might be the most known. The music was all recorded between 1985 and 1988, often containing live recordings. I won't go into every band separately because it's too much work, although from some bands I will upload more tapes in the future of the blog. 

Polish Road can be seen as a critical undermining of the socialist regime and a time document of what was going on at that time in the Polish underground, while Solidarność was already making big leaps and the change of political system was very near. Please note that I'm putting this music in a political narrative, but a lot of this music was just artistic expression and didn't have any political agenda in itself.

After the communist period a hopeful time arrived to Eastern Europe during the 90's (apart from Yugoslavia), but nowadays we know how much political difficulties we are facing yet again. It slowly fosters the realization that this music and its urgent character, pushing through all possible limits, whether having no audience, no listeners or the lack of technical production or musical skills, yet giving expression to the inner spirit and the need for change in society, could still be perfectly inspiring today.

Many more obscure Polish cassettes will be uploaded to the blog with time.

Get it HERE

Arf Arf - Clanguage -1996- (CD, Self-Released), Australia

Arf Arf was an important Australia based sound-poetry group that consisted of Marisa Stirpe, Frank Lovece, Michael Buckley and Marcus Bergner. Since the mid-80's they did over a hundred international shows. The members have been active in the Australian experimental music underground since the late 70's. Frank Lovece was an Italian born musician that moved to Australia as a child and played in the cult-group The Primitive Calculators. Michael Buckley and Marcus Bergner played in an obscure band called Too Fat To Fit Through The Door. Marisa Stirpe in groups like Thrush and The Cunts, The Take and The Egg. Most of these bands that were related to the Primitive Calculators were compiled on a CD in 2006. Marcus Bergner also made the cover art for The Boys Next Door's Hee-Haw EP (Nick Cave's first band before The Birthday Party and later The Bad Seeds).

Arf Arf's Clanguage brings together a variety of lo-fi sound-poetry tracks that are quite musical in their nature. We can hear gripping sound poems layering different narratives on top of each other. The artists are reciting poems as well as displaying the suggestiveness of poetic meaning within a sound-flow of cadence, the occasional use of musical instruments and different voice exclamations. It often leans to absurdism because of the peculiar communication between the voices and the non-languages they are using. It's really amazing stuff, absorbing the listener into the intimate world of the poets who were immersed in their practice. This immersion is also reflected in the way in which the notations of the poems were done, being actual little visual pieces of art in themselves. Take a look at them here.

Arf Arf is a nice example of Australian (sound-) poetry that played an important role in its underground music history, whether coming from a beat icon like Daevid Allen or the sound poems by Amanda Stewart.

Get it HERE

Various Artists - Views Beside... -1982- (7 Inch EP, Ed. Vogelsang), Germany

This is a rare artists' 7 Inch that accompanied an art book edited by Fritz Balthaus, published by Ed. Vogelsang in Berlin in 1982. Unfortunately I don't have the book, but according to information online it was an anthology assembling contributions by numerous artists: texts, photos, collages, drawings, an object (a pencil), and the six audio pieces on the 7", which was housed in a generic inner sleeve attached to the inside of the back cover of the book.

It's another nice example of the music experiments that were going on in the West-Berlin art scene and the galleries of the time in which there was dialogue, overlap (or colission as you wish) between the art academies and more established art world with the DIY underground of the time. Neue Deutsche Welle music and its performance aspects balanced on these two fringes, because of the often conceptual nature in the artistic approach. You can find certain examples of this in Berliner bands like Die Tödliche Doris, the whole Geniale Dilletanten happening in Berlin's Tempodrom in 1981 or the Berlin Super 8 DIY art-films that were being made by local experimental musicians and artists. On a sidenote, these type of happenings and musical output also took place in East-Berlin and other GDR cities like Dresden and Leipzig. There is a nice documentary in German about that here. These expressions were much more marginal and obviously not tolerated by the regime so at times quite dangerous for the artists in their practices.

On this little record there are various artists compiled from Berlin as well as foreign places: the first piece is made by Florence born Italian visual artist Maurizio Nanucci, who started to work with neon typography in the late 60's. His work deals with the relation between his research on linguistics and the visual experience of colours.

Then there is Berlin artist and writer Thomas Kapielski who also worked a lot with the important experimental musician Frieder Butzmann in the 80's. Kapielski is still active to this day. Also Fritz Balthaus is present, an artist that in his work dealt a lot with the mediation between architecture and design in (public) spaces. American composer Beth Anderson is compiled with a nice track that is also the most poppy on the record.

Lastly there is a piece by conceptual visual artist Rolf Julius based on a reel-to-reel voice cut-up of American female voice experimentalist Joan La Barbara and a piece by Fred Szymanski of the great New York band Ike Yard, which was the only band from the US to be featured on the Factory Records roster during the 80's.

Some nice sound-art pieces from Berlin's past.

Get it HERE

Various Artists - The Meridian Crossings -1995- (CD, Hermit Foundation), Czech Republic

This is a CD only compilation around the music and arts symposium The Meridian Crossings that took place in Plzeň, Czech Republic in 1995. It is a varied release containing Czech folk musician Pavel Fajt, a.o. known of the amazing Czech group Dunaj, Cellist Vojtěch Havel who also did many ethereal folk and avant-garde world music soundscapes with his wife Irena Havlová and also many more improvisation musicians from the country I know less about.

Then present on here is English Rock In Opposition hero Tim Hodgkinson, known ofcourse as member of the pioneering RIO band Henry Cow. Also Dutch and Scandinavian artists are compiled (like Ad van Buuren) with art-installation sounds and improvisation pieces. Drummer Jim Meneses is also featured on the compilation, who played in the Berlin based band Stan Red Fox which I posted before on the blog. Lastly present here is Australian sound-art poetess Amanda Stewart.

The Meridian Crossings is a nice historical sound document of a manifestation of experimental music. A moment in which people from different countries exchanged musical talent in a post-socialist country that always had a very strong experimental underground scene in which music played a pivotal role. Within Eastern Europe, Czech Republic was always musically ahead with legendary groups like The Plastic People of The Universe, DG307 or Extempore. Their sounds concealed critical politics, poetry, art and philosophy in a context of the darker realms of folk and progressive rock experimentation to fight repression and to share state-forbidden information in order to uplift generations of people who were fighting to change the system. On The Meridian Crossings we can hear a new time that is still rooted in this past, but already merging with a global contemporary art-world representing a new transnational unity through the serious but also light-hearted musical avant-garde.

Get it HERE

The Schismatics - Vazen Vol (Vases Full) -1994- (CD, AMF Music), Netherlands

The Schismatics were a Dutch Rock In Opposition and improvisation band that started in the 80's connected to the domain of the legendary artists squats of the Quarantaineweg in Rotterdam, although always based in Amsterdam. The Schismatics is more or less led by Dutch singer, poet and musician Han Buhrs. He was involved in many musical projects like Nine Tobs, Encore + Plus Grande with members of the French RIO band Etron Fou Leloublan, Palinckx and many more. His latest project is the Amsterdam based group Rubatong and Ensemble Extra Ordinaire.

At the time of this album, that was recorded at various locations in Holland in the early 90's, The Schismatics consisted of Han Buhrs (vocals, percussion), Jodi Gilbert (vocals), Beatrice van der Poel (vocals), Maartje ten Hoorn (violin) and Frank van Berkel (bass). The music on Vazen Vol is an interesting mixture of improvisation and avant-garde poetry with an emphasis on the role of the voice as instrument. The often absurd lyrics are a constant combination of both English and Dutch with the occasional use of other languages. The music reminds me of the Italian group Arigret, the American band Care of The Cow, the music of Maggie Nicols and Lindsay Cooper and many more acts of the rock in opposition world of Recommended Records.

This is another essential CD only release from the Dutch impro scene and probably one of the only Dutch groups that may carry the real label of the genre of Rock In Opposition. The cover of the album consists of a painting by Dutch artist Marjan Verkerk.

Get it HERE

Kósa Vince - Berkoff: A Görög -1994- (Tape, Razzia Distribution), Hungary

This cassette is a solo effort by Hungarian musician and Industrial music protagonist Kósa Vince. Kósa played in the pioneering Hungarian industrial group Art Deco (posted a long time ago on the blog) as well as in the industrial group BP. Service. On this cassette he plays the music to the play A Görög (The Greek) written by English actor and playwright Steven Berkoff that was premiered in 1980 in London and performed in the Radnóti Theatre in Budapest in 1994. The Greek was a modern interpretation of the well-known ancient tragedy Oedipus Rex by Sophocles. The tragedy that also inspired Freud in his work to develop his concept of the Oedipus complex.

The music on the tape consists of two long pieces. The first side starts with rhythm based industrial  in combination with collaged music taken from classical music. Later the music transitions into a subaquatic dark ambient soundscape. The B-side is a slightly more interesting affair, where Kósa fully embraces a synthetic tribal ambient sound even ending up in some 90's beats. Nevertheless it still holds on to darker atmospheres.

A Görög reminds me of the 1983 piece Neveleiland by Dutch home-tapers De Fabriek. Furthermore, the music is really in similar realms as the Hungarian avant-garde album Private Exits by composer Tibor Szemző or Hungarian composer László Hortobágyi and his electro-acoustic music built on Indian cosmologies.

A rare cassette, often mistaken for a screenplay or spoken word. Great music and soundscapes from the early nineties and another piece of the Hungarian experimental music puzzle. Lots of Hungarian cassettes still to come to the blog!

Recommended!

Get it HERE



PS: I have an extra copy of this tape. If you would like to trade it for another nice record or tape feel free to get in touch.

Various Artists - Druga Liga Prvo Kolo -1995- (CD, Helidon), Slovenia/Croatia

Druga Liga Prvo Kolo -Second League First Round - is an essential cornerstone compilation from post-Yugo 90's Slovenia. It compiles both Slovenian and Croatian bands that were active in the early and mid-90's in their respective underground scene. Eastern European underground bands from this time were very weird and unclassifiable, playing a combination of both unskilled punk and hyper-complex rock in opposition drenched in a healthy amount of absurdism while existing within a genuine alternative culture based on communal uplifting activisim and desperate local divertissement. Also don't forget that the decade of the 90's in former Yugoslavia and the Balkans was heavily loaded with political tensions and war sentiments that needed an explosive creative output in one way or the other.

Slovenian bands in general, also before the fall of the iron curtain and the disbanding of Yugoslavia, were always very intriguingly weird. With Laibach as main national music reference you know you're in for a blast when digging into the Slovenian musical underground. Other great alternative bands from Slovenia I can think of are Miladojka Youneed, Begnagrad, Lolita, Strelnikoff or the later Pinja Dzazna (who has those files for me!?)

The Slovenian bands on this compilation are experimental group Mamojebac (of which their whole and only existing tape from 1995 Tko Je Ovdje Kome Guzica? is present), strange punk band Absent Minded and the great avantgarde art-rock band Žoambo Žoet Workestrao. 

The Croatian groups present on Druga Liga are the demented HC-punk group Why Stakla (of which almost their whole cassette Daj, Dođi! from 1995 is compiled) and the free punk no jazz band from Rijeka Plod Mirže (I'm curious if more of their music exists). These bands also remind me of the Croatian band SexA.

Essential uneasy listening of post-Yugo punk-noise-insanity from the underground!

Get it HERE