Ever since Mutant Sounds posted their first cassette Kleine Gelben Tierchen (Little Yellow Animals) in 2007 I tried tracking down the second Dancing Chromosomes cassette. Finally after more than a decade here it is...
The Dancing Chromosomes were a NDW and New Wave band from Munich that consisted of Ralf Bremer, Philipp Meyer and Christian Türck (& Fraenk S. and Peter Spies). (Members of honor: Lutz Möller, Steffen Haller). They released two cassettes in the early eighties and ran their own cassette label called Refiuti Records.
On this second cassette Was Ihr Wollt the band continues where they left off with the first one, although in a slightly less minimalistic way. Some light-hearted rock 'n' roll inspired tunes are interspersed with synth experiments and darker new wave songs with melancholic atmospheres.
The Dancing Chomosomes were not absurdistic like many of their NDW peers, but they focused more on their song-writing. Some of the tracks contain certain Sehnsucht love theme's that resemble Dutch minimal synth act The Actor. Their less serious tunes also remind me of Bavarian home-tapers Fit & Limo or the mysterious Tenk Ric Snach project I posted some time ago. All in all there is an elegance of the music on display through mood and emotion.
Another essential tape from 80's Germany, the Munich DIY scene and the missing piece of the Dancing Chromosomes discography. Maybe some labels are brave enough to reissue them one day!
Earth's Epitaph were an anarcho new wave and post-punk group from the surroundings of the city of Cwmbran in the South of Wales created by Chris, Ray and Jayne. The band was formed inspired by bands like Crass and Siouxsie And The Banshees to which the members had been listening for years before starting their own band. Earth's Epitaph recorded two 'official' demo's of which Child's Play is their second one. They also contributed some songs to a couple of compilations during the mid-eighties.
The music of Earth's Epitaph has a more conventional new-wave sound, but is definitely rooted in the same political UK anarcho punk spirit of bands like Crass, The Apostles or Omega Tribe. Songs are criticizing the English government, injustices of society and politics driven by themes of environmentalism, animal rights, anti-apartheid and anti-fascism. The songs are somewhat reminiscent of the Young Marble Giants or of Dutch new wave band Qua Dance I posted a long time ago.
Child's Play was issued with a DIY fanzine on their music, political standpoints, vegetarian and vegan cooking recipes and interviews with other Welsh wave and post-punk bands from in and around the scene like The Enid, The Housemartins and Balaam And The Angel. Ofcourse I included scans of the fanzine to the file below.
Earth's Epitaph is another band that cared to involve their malcontentedness with social inequality, capitalism and environment in their music, based on the basic punk principle that starting a band doesn't take much. I might upload their first demo cassette in the future.
About a year ago a couple of hundred of tapes from an old collection came into my hands. Most of them were self-recorded copies of existing albums, mostly vinyl, that someone had been copying throughout the 80's. The majority of the music on these cassettes did consist of weird new wave, experimental and industrial music. I started to devide the tapes into different sections, the exact recorded copies of albums I put away in one box and the unknown cassettes without any written information on them I stored away in another box to examine. I also threw away dozens of tapes that were poor in quality and had nothing to do with underground music in general. Even now I still have some bags left with the unknown cassettes. I still have to listen to them and figure out what is on there.
In-between all of this stuff there was a self-made series that consisted of overdubs of rare NDW cassettes all with typewriter style titles and tracklisting. Because of that information I could luckily connect this one here to its original: a release I had been looking for over at least a decade. Thus, the digitization of this is somewhat less sharp sounding because I had to use a copy as source. Nevertheless we should be very happy that someone copied this rarity in 1981 for us to hear today! It doesn't seem likely this will surface any time soon in any sound quality (also with regard to the collectors who do seem to have this).
The Westhafen Plassette (Platte und Kassette) is a true relic and highly important item of the West-Berlin underground music scene of the early 80's. Released in a scarse edition of only 200 copies this three-way split release, that consisted of a 7 inch vinyl and a cassette, compiled three underground groups hailing from Berlin: Bodenpersonal, Tumorbeus (Read: Tumorboys), and Siedlerheim. It came out on the obscure cult label Kompakt Produkte from Berlin. The music consists of some of the purest experimental minimal synth and DIY new-wave music in the tradition of the grey and wall-divided Berlin music underground of the time:
Bodenpersonal with their Zufallsprodukt Eines Langweiligen Wochenendes (Chance product of a boring weekend) was recorded in a factory in Berlin in 1980 and consists of great minimal synth and DIY-music improvisation.
Tumorbeus create such abstract synthesizer driven atmospheres that the
music almost becomes techno-like, mindblowingly ahead of its time to say
the least. I really wonder whether they did more music in those days.
They also remind me a bit of the Studio 12 bands from Haarlem, The Netherlands from the early 80's with bands like Nexda and Cargo Cultus.
Siedlerheim seems to be the more traditional NDW group, but also ventures into electronic experimentation. They have more structured tracks with vocals and even incorporate the occassional saxophone burst. Maybe their sound is actually the most representative West-Berliner sound of the time. An energy that was also captured strongly in the Berlin Super 80 film, that gathered underground music and performance video's recorded on Super 8 Film by different artists from Berlin during the 80's (I will add that video below. Update: the video has been removed). Both Bodenpersonal and Siedlerheim have been re-released more than a
decade ago by the great WSDP label specialized in rare NDW cassettes.
Some of the tracks that are on the Westhafen Plassette were also compiled by WSDP, just not
everything. The Westhafen Plassette is partially a musical time-document but it also displayed its avant-garde vision of futuristic musical possibilities beyond the political barriers of the bleak urban landscape and society of Berlin at that time. It stands closely next to many other important underground bands from Berlin of the time like Kompakt Produkte peerband Thorax Wach, Notorische Reflexe, Die Tödliche Doris, Sentimentale Jugend, Malaria!, Einstürzende Neubauten, An Die Schwarze Kunst, Sprung Aus Den Wolken and many more. Both in instrumentation and energy very strong. Those analog machines in combination with this urgency to experiment really resulted in some of the greatest music in general it seems.
It's nice to post this on the blog since 2019 marks the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. If you would like to dig deeper into the theme of the underground music history of Berlin I really recommend the book Berlin Calling, A story of Anarchy, Music, the Wall and the Birth of the New Berlin by Paul Hockenos (2017).
A long story this time, anyway... could have saved this one for Christmas, but I have so much more to share on the blog... Enjoy! Sturm und Turm!
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.
Here we have another nice tape from the American cassette-culture network of the 80's by Ice Cream Blisters. A band that came from Kent, Ohio that was founded by Mike Crooker and Chris Mezzolesta and friends, they also did the home-taping label GGE in Kent. Ice Cream Blisters made a couple more tapes and were for example also featured on the Exart compilation Music From The White House: U.S.A.. Their music is quite an eclectic mix-up of many different musical genres and styles like most of the weird American bands from that time.
When Nature Fails, Art Steps In definitely fits a no future mentality having a nice punk style and attitude combined with some deranged new wave sounds and pure sound experiments. It reminds me of other American bands like The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Blacklight Braille or Strange Fruit Abiku, ofcourse Pere Ubu that also hails from Ohio and probably also many other US bands I am overlooking now one can find in the Mutant Sounds archive. Nevertheless, Ice Cream Blisters has a signature of its own and the lengthy tape has many different musical highlights. From the demented violin infused Vivaldi to the nice lo-fi pop track Drive It Down.
I guess that the punk attitude of Ice Cream Blisters makes sense in the light of US (art-)punk in the North-Eastern and Mid-West states of the US that already had their own special punk-history since the 60's (think The Stooges and the Detroit scene etc). By the way, you can hear that a lot of effort was put in this release. Strange how they have remained so unknown, even after all the music that the blogs have been reviving for the last decade. Maybe some more of their music will surface with the time. It's really good! And not on Discogs.
"Don't be a cardboard celebrity that people pose next to. Don't live in fear of something you don't know really exists, think your own thoughts, they are worth more."
This tape was kindly donated by the Y Create archive
Here we have a great lo-fi 80's synth-pop cassette by the strange outfit Tenkh Ric Snach. The group appeared marginally on less than a handful of home-taping compilations during the 80's, but I have never seen a full cassette by them until now. I couldn't decipher where they are from, on the one hand they sound very much like many home-taping and wave groups from the United States. Those often had a slightly more commercial approach to their DIY electronic sound in combination with utterly demented vocals and maddening compositions. On the other hand Tenkh Ric Snach finishes of this cassette with a track called In Österreich, which could also mean they were from Austria (probably they were because the voice and accent are very Austrian). Besides this I don't know the year of the release. I will need the help from all of you to find all the correct information.
The cassette is a bit fragile and recorded in a very lo-fi manner, the volume didn't even have a real punch. The presented sound quality here is as good as it gets. It will probably appeal more to the real lo-fi music lovers, but beneath the sound quality are cleverly created minimal synth songs that are very poppy (also lyrics-wise) a little absurd and furthermore nice to hear. In line with what I wrote before it could musically either be close to US bands like Tone Set or Los Microwaves but it can also be closer to some of the German language territory resembling a group like The Dancing Chromosomes. I don't think many of these tapes were made. Not on Discogs.
Amusing lo-fi minimal synth-pop songs nicely matured on cassette for many years. A minimal synth mystery!
Even though 'low-key' this was already digitized I figured to rip this anyway to shed some more light on this band since the music is really good, sometimes even better stuff than some of the wave reissues that came out throughout the years.
Sukursaal were a Dutch wave band (Nederwave) consisting of Marc de Reus, Maarten de Reus, Marijke Bruggink and other collaborators. They made this one cassette that came out on the Pion Tapes label from Delft (a small picturesque city in between The Hague and Rotterdam where for example famous Dutch painter Johnannes Vermeer was born). Pion Tapes also released the new wave band La Peste that was posted on No Longer Forgotten Music ages ago.
Sukursaal played interesting poppy new wave music that displayed a classic Dutch wave sound, synthetic minimal synth tracks, but also used funky basslines and a jazzy impro sound. The Dutchness is emphasized in tracks like 'Dikes (Protect Me)' where the lyrics are: "Dikes protect me from being washed under", yep most of Holland is still under sea level and we really need those dikes.
The music reminds me a lot of the Rotterdam band Dojoji, of electro-jazz outfit Niew Hip Stilen, but also of Malice In Wonderland (just a lot less batcave style of new wave). The tracks are quite distinct from each other and also quite clean because of the studio recording production. The highlights are the tracks with female vocals and the electronic ones.
Many many more Dutch tapes from the home-taping era still to come to the blog this year!
Malice In Wonderland was a classic underground new wave band from The Netherlands (we call that style Nederwave) consisting of Ronald Israëls (bass), Job Goedhart (guitar), Simone Koch (singer), Peter Jansen (keyboards, voice) and Michel Didier (drums). Their music has a distinct bat-cave type new wave style with punk influences that also reminds me of other Dutch groups like Qua Dance (posted before on the blog), WAT or maybe even Soviet Sex.
All tracks on Violence & Passion were recorded live at various Dutch venues that were mostly dedicated to the underground of the 80's in those days. Because of the female vocals, quite elaborated song-writing and the evident use of keyboards it even has something B-52's like to it, maybe something of X-Mal Deutschland too. It's a great relic from the prime of new wave in The Netherlands in its purest form when youth centre's were inhabited by Siouxsie haircuts, extravagant make-up and vleermuis fashion.
Violence & Passion was released on cassette in 1984 and came with an extensive booklet showing information on the different tracks, nice pictures and no-future poetry. Quite surprising that Malice In Wonderland hasn't been covered too much, even though so much new wave music has been given attention the last years. I couldn't find it on Discogs.
The cassette shows quite some white-noise since me and my friend found this tape in a quite dusty and old state, probably in the record store since 1984. Still quite some nice wave pop-songs on it!
Details At Eleven was a New York based experimental avant-garde outfit that consisted of Lin Culbertson, David Humphrey, Ken Heer and Katie O'Looney. They fit in greatly with the New York style improvisation groups of the time creating complex drum rhythm and saxophone fueled experimental theme's even with synthesizer additions. The sound is also quite close to the work of multi-instrumentalist Elliott Sharp who also is being thanked on the record cover.
Details At Eleven was released through the German Dossier records, which is a great record label that somehow always stayed somewhat under the radar, because of the strange groups it managed to gather, from impro-jazz new wave to industrial. Details At Eleven also contains some new wave influences, specially during the vocal parts of Lin Culbertson. She is a visual artist, graphic designer and multi-instrumentalist who played with a lot of musicians from the impro-experimental scene like Zeena Parkins, Thurston Moore and many more.
Details At Eleven deserves some more attention in my opinion as it really sounds weird and fresh. Similar to Niew Hip Stilen from Holland, New York's Semantics (with Elliott Sharp) or the Berlin band Stan Red Fox that I posted on the blog before.
Broken Paws was a solo project of one Richard Reynols from Calgary, Canada. On this only self-titled cassette he plays a variety of different instruments in combination with electronic drum computers and synthesizers, creating over an hour long cassette full of minimal synth and experimental home-taping tracks.
I guess in a way some tracks carry a similar zeitgeist of other minimal synth artists from Canada in the eighties like Ohama, Ceramic Hello, or Lou Champagne System. Still I think that Broken Paws has a much stronger experimental DIY approach to it, not afraid to move far away from the common sounds of the overly known corporate analog gear doing a new wave pop-song (although some tracks come close).
There is a lot more insane manipulation, cinematic sound improvisation and the creative blend of instruments in the form of analog synthesizers with a clarinet or a music box. In a way atmospherically it stands much closer to the tape-album of Canadian artist Edie Steiner but it also has a feeling of stuff like Unovidual, Á Suivre or Brobat Enema.
Anyway, it's still quite a good and varied release with some nice minimal synth, new wave and home-taping experiments. Also it has a lovely art work. The cassette has been digitized before as part of the Noise-Arch Archive, but the first ten minutes of that particular tape were damaged and absent, so hereby I can present it in its entirety!
