Let's start the new year with another special cassette by the Dutch anarchist, free-form home-taping group Dust And The Minds. The band hailed from the surroundings of the small village of Egmond-Binnen and was created by the brothers Fred and John
Valkering who were accompanied by a lot of different other musicians.
The Valkering brothers established their cassette label Egmondse Klank Opsessie (Egmond sound obsession/on session) to release their different musical disguises like Dust And The Minds, Comrades Creating,
Hafre as well as solo works. During the 80's they released dozens of
cassettes of which many were beautifully created and released with DIY
booklets, drawings, posters, unusual packages etc.
Prosperó Año Nuevo (PAN) is an extensive release with over two hours of pure DIY no-wave, post-punk and anarcho-punk sounds that was released for the new year of 1986. Apparently it's a mix between Dust and The Minds and a band with a slightly different line-up called Brenray. The cassettes were housed in a larger book-like case with information on the recording dates and line-up etc.
The output on the Egmondse Klank Opsessie has been vast and mind-blowingly authentic and home-made. The entire surroundings of Egmond and the smaller towns and villages in the province of North-Holland were always a very important fertile soil for (anarcho)punk in The Netherlands. Places like Wormerveer, Koog aan de Zaan, Heiloo, Castricum and their surroundings are some of the birthplaces of the typical Dutch punk sound that incorporates detuned improvisation and noise elements. This in contrast to the usually more structured sound of HC punk or the classic three-chord punk songs.
Some wonderful DIY sounds from 80's Holland. There is a lot more to say about all of this, but it's better to just give this a listen.
I guess it's time for another very special cassette by Dutch anarchist, free-form home-taping group Dust And The Minds. The band from the surroundings of the small village of Egmond-Binnen was created by the brothers Fred and John
Valkering who were accompanied by a lot of different other musicians.
The Valkering brothers established their cassette label Egmondse Klank Opsessie (Egmond sound obsession/on session) to release their different musical disguises like Dust And The Minds, Comrades Creating, Hafre as well as solo works. During the 80's they released dozens of cassettes of which many were beautifully created and released with DIY booklets, drawings, posters, unusual packages etc.
The music on the Egmondse Klank Opsessie label was truly authentic and true to itself, even within the Dutch home-taping and punk circuits of the time. Within the wider region there were many punk groups active in their own space but not all villages were naturally connected and not everyone was pushing punk into more abstract forms. The punk influence however seemed an important starting point from which further experimentation and free-music forms were explored by some of the groups. Dust And The Minds clearly combined all those different elements.
Mind Blow is quite an exceptional album that was released as a pack of tobacco, including a pre-rolled
cigarette, dust-and-the-minds rolling papers, a DIY booklet and ofcourse the cassette. Having heard different
albums by the band, Mind Blow is probably one of the most
elaborate and complete ones they did. It combines dark post-punk songs, free
impro no-wave tunes as well as dub sounds brought with an uncompromising energy to play music. It has a sound that might
be a bit reminiscent of early Cabaret Voltaire, perhaps Bourbonese Qualk or even Bauhaus (you know the stuff from the time), yet there's this natural will to create present in the music that gives a real animated feel. I feel that everything they did is deserving some revaluation and appreciation. Who knows if we can make something happen eventually...
I intended to index the tape, but sometimes the tracks flow into each other, so I decided that it's better to hear it as an ongoing cassette without cuts. More Dust And The Minds in a previous blogpost and perhaps more to come in the future.
Graveyards are made for the living to remember the lifes of the death A rotting place of poisened bodies Dangerous as pesticide where can I go when I'm dead and gone Throw me in the sea, the fish you eat will burn your guts burn me, the smoke will torture your skin I'm a nuclear soul Eternity at last.
Merry Christmas and an Archaic New Decade to all friends and followers of the blog!
Wait a second, is that Jesus? Portrayed as a punk? Well, that will always be a bit of a tricky analogy within punk circles and beyond. But anyhow! Bijna 2000 Jaar Geleden (Translated: Almost 2000 years ago) is a rare Dutch (hardcore) punk compilation from the first hour compiling different punk bands from smaller cities of The Netherlands. It was released by the Volendam based punk label Anti-Esthetische Dienst (anti-esthetic service) created by Niels de Wit who is also compiled on this cassette with his band Gepøpel.
Ironically Volendam, of all places in the Netherlands, is actually mostly known for the worst of the worst commercial sound of Dutch schlager pop-music of which I won't give any examples here. It's a tricky and fairly untrue statement but I would say that most real and influential punk from The Netherlands from the early days did not come from the big cities, but more so from small places. The Ex, one of Holland's most important real anarcho-punk groups also partially came from the village of Wormer, which tells us something.
Bijna 2000 Jaar Geleden came out as the alternative Christmas gift for the whole family for the end of the year holidays of 1983. It mostly consists of live recordings of punk bands that either sing in Dutch or English. The songs have typical punk subjects like anti-religion, anti-establishment and the opposal of the average daily life in society. Short and simple tracks often badly recorded as they should have been. One of the highlights is the track "Kortjakje" which is a famous Dutch children's song about Kortjakje, a poor and maybe alcoholic woman who is always ill throughout the week except for Sundays when she goes to church. The punks invert the plot of the song in the booklet and ask the question: why can't Kortjakje be ill on Sundays?!
This cassette came with an extensive booklet containing DIY collage, visual information on the lyrics of each band and ofcourse some drawings on the Christmas theme. As always I added the scans to the file below. This is another nice relic from the Dutch punk scene. More of the A.E.D. label and dozens of early Dutch punk tapes can be found in the No Longer Forgotten Music archive (it requires some searching).
What an amazing ride it was musically in 2019. In terms of material it looks very bright for the blog in the next year. I might even have larger opportunities coming that would lead to a great amount of treasures of obscure music but we have to wait how that unfolds. But even now I can almost not believe some of the stuff that still lies around here, so I'm generally content. A decade ago when I was a teenager I was dreaming of creating a blog like Archaic Inventions and the surprising thing about it is that I managed to make it happen somehow.
2020
An additional music discourse that I want to introduce to the blog in the next year is a.o. the attention for the underground origins of dance music, to retrace some of its autonomously conquered components and explore a bit of the ethics away from what became part or has always been part of the new era of neoliberal gentrified club culture. Also I felt I had to bring some more punk music to the equation as you can see, because I find that the music zeitgeist has been marginalizing some of the important DIY functions lately compulsively changing the view on the so-called creative conditions for a praiseworthy piece of music to exist. It's a tendency that also divides certain musical genres from their often common origins and polarizes the music scene more than it brings people together. The world has changed.
I'm working on a couple of reissues with great (reissue) labels (Discos Transgénero, StroomTV, Futura Resistenza etc.) writing liner notes for them (more on that soon). Also I will publish a cassette of my own music (old and new) soon in the beginning of the next year and hopefully another album later on. Maybe I have one or two other surprises up my monkey sleeve. Anyway, I'm just doing what I can do, or something like that. I just want to say much love to you all and I'm grateful to all you listeners out there. And grateful for all you talented people in and out of music! Also for the great amount of creativity on the upperground, but realize that the underground has to receive some sustainable care too. Really more than ever.
So ofcourse (far away from this blog) a special thank you to the marginalized music multitude, the people showing local resistance, music activists and the unpaid or the unruly who keep organizing events and concerts, who are making their unorthodox music, who keep pushing under difficult circumstances. Keep it weird and feel comfort in the fact that you feel that you don't want to uphold an image publically (online), we're all connected.
A last special thanks to all the music blogs out there still doing what they do best. It's a huge effort, in free time, for the love of music. Respect!
