It has been a while (for several reasons) but here it goes again. Vol Sec (originally Voluntary Sector) was a post-punk outfit from Brighton that emerged from the band The Parrots in late 1979 or early 1980. The band consisted of Les Phillips (drums), Brenda Robinson (vocals), Rick Blair (guitar, vocals, synth), Colin Murray (bass), Jay Derrick (keyboards, synth, vocals), Nick Wells (guitar) and Tom White (trumpet). Rick Blair was simultaneously running Attrix Records (which also was a record store).
Vol Sec was embedded in a larger local scene of punk, post-punk and new
wave groups. The main underground venue for this music scene in Brighton was The Vault. Other venues where punk gigs took place were the
Alhambra and the Buccaneer. Vol Sec's song Love (Sic) was used as the
signature tune for Radio Brighton's weekly programme featuring Brighton
bands, which went out during 1980-1981. The Vol Sec sound is a nice mixture of post-punk and new-wave funk.
More information on the entire scene in Brighton at the time is to be found here.
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. Earth's Epitaph recorded two
'official' demo's of which "Release" is their first one. They also
contributed some songs to a couple of compilations during the
mid-eighties. You can find their second release in a previous blogpost.
The music of Earth's Epitaph seems to have a rather conventional new-wave sound at first, but
is definitely rooted in the same political UK anarcho punk spirit of
bands like Crass, The Apostles or Omega Tribe.
The songs are dealing with environmentalism, animal rights, anti-fascism and anti-militarism. The music sounds a bit like
the Young Marble Giants if they would have incorporated the political spirit of an anarcho-punk band like Poison Girls
Since the music of Earth's Epitaph was released as a demo cassette it has quite some strong white noise on the surface of the recording. Nevertheless the combination of inventive minimalist rhythm box driven song-writing, simple casio keyboard melodies and socially engaged lyrics created a little pearl of Welsh post-punk music from the 80's that has its lo-fi charm. Innocent anarcho-wave music with a serious combatant message. The sweet sound of resistance.
The following information has been
extracted from the Alternative Toronto website and the BlackDotMuseum blog and
partially recombined:
The C.I.A. Tape was recorded live at
the Fallout Shelter and Ildiko's, and features poetry and musical performances
by Dick Lucas (of Subhumans), Mecca Normal, Nick Toczek, Rhythm Activism
and Mourning Sickness.
The Fallout Shelter recordings are the Toronto postscript to the Black
Wedge tour on September 5, 1987.
The Fallout Shelter was a "nuclear free" performance space and coffee
house run by the peace organization A.C.T. for Disarmament on Harbord Street.
The Black Wedge was a tour of activist resistance culture organized by Jean
Smith of the band Mecca Normal, which set out to "spread the word of how
to combine poetry, music and politics and have a fun time doing it.” As Smith
comments about the Black Wedge tour in his essay "Take Something You Care
About and Make It Your Life":
“One step easier than punk! The Black Wedge is out to spread the word of how to
combine poetry, music and politics and have a fun time doing it. Hardcore poems
and shredding guitars, radical voices crushing sexism, militarism, poverty and
conformity. The Black Wedge wants to set wild hearts and imaginations free, to
release a riot of emotion–opening up a new arena for activist resistance
culture.”
At the beginning of 1986, Mecca Normal released their first LP on their own
label, Smarten Up! Records. Soon thereafter, they flew to Montreal and hooked
up with Rhythm Activism; another music duo dealing with social
issues with a strong anti-authoritarian perspective. While the four stood around in
the basement of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation building waiting to go live on air from coast to coast, they listened in on the segment prior to their timeslot–England’s Red Wedge was being featured. The Red Wedge was formed in the late 80's to support
the Labour Party, they presented political ideas within a musical
context and showcased musicians that encouraged people to vote Labour. The Black
Wedge however, that came into existence that same night, would encourage people to reclaim
their voices, to speak out against oppression rather than rely on electoral
politics as a means to solve social problems. Answers were looked for elsewhere than existing politics and against the establishment.
During the Black Wedge tour, through their lyrics or in between songs, the bands covered topics like sexism, disenfranchised citizens, poverty as well as other social issues which can be heard throughout the various songs of The C.I.A. Tape. A song like “Are you hungry
Joe?” for example, includes a dialogue between Joe and someone that stands between him
and the bag of groceries at a food bank, forcing Joe to argue why he needs food...
All tracks on The C.I.A. Tape were recorded live in Toronto. The tape was eventually published
by Bluurg Tapes with the editing done in June '88 at T.A.S.C. Master Studios,
Trinity & All Saint's College, in Leeds England.
"This tape is dedicated to all exceptionally oppressed people, but
particularly to those whose entire lifestyle is being destroyed... Romany,
Amerindian, Aborigine, and all other proud tribal people whose culture won't
readily bow down before the all-consuming gods of western 'civilization,'
social 'progress' and cash-culture.”
The original information for both Jean Smith’s essay and The C.I.A. Tape information
can be retrieved from: https://www.alternativetoronto.ca/archive/items/show/500 https://blackdotmuseum.wordpress.com/the-black-wedge-1986/
- Juan Vacas
This blogpost is a collaborative effort. Many thanks to: Juan Vacas (curation and assembling of text),Jon "Dietsociety" Kruithof and acab_in_1985 (SLSK) (providing rips and doing archival work). Editor: Bence.
Dustbin Silence was a short-lived (1982-1985) jazz, noise and improvisation trio from Rotterdam that was formed by Han van Hulzen, ErikWard Geerlings and Henri van Zanten. Han van Hulzen was also part of the new wave group Corridor des Affaires during that time and Henri van Zanten is also known as a (sound) poet in his own right.
Dustbin Silence, however, was connected to the Rotterdam based Jazzbunker scene that existed around the legendary Jazzbunker venue which functioned as a home for Dutch and international improvisation, jazz and rock in opposition. During the 80's Rotterdam had numerous special bands that created diverse styles out of a blend of new wave, jazz, home-taping and improvisation. Some of them were also performing at the Jazzbunker. Bands from Rotterdam from those times are a.o. Dull Schicksal, Nine Tobs, The Black Sheep, Kiem, Kontakt Mikrofoon Orkest, Niew Hip Stilen, Debiele Eenheid and many others.
On this cassette by Dustbin Silence we hear a recording from the Jazzbunker, but there are also pieces recorded elsewhere in The Netherlands. It gives a nice impression of the group's live recordings: gloomy atmospheres combining free improvised sounds with punk poetry in Dutch and English. It reminds me of industrial performance art groups sounds of the 80's of which the live recordings resemble much more of a document of a scene than perfectly composed tracks. The Berlin band Sprung Aus Den Wolken sometimes created such a feel for example.
In any case here's another interesting cassette hailing from the Rotterdam improvisation scene of the 80's.
Here we have another obscure cassette from Hungary's underground belonging to the alternative 90's. I won't make it a habit to intertwine my personal history with the music I present on the blog, but in this particular case it's inevitable.
Persona Non Grata is a band from the small Southern Hungarian town of Szigetvár that in its longest consistent period consisted of Kaszper „René” Gyula (guitar and vocals), Bodor "Gizi" Ákos (bass guitar), Rosta „Kakas” Béla (Trumpet) and Balogh Tamás (drums). The band sometimes involved other musician friends and has been morphing into different line-ups until this day.
The band was formed in 1990 by a couple of friends living in the same building who were not specifically musically educated. They decided that a band had to be created and each person had to pick an instrument. No sooner said than done, Persona Non Grata came into existence and hours and hours of try-outs took place. In the beginning the band had an unorthodox punk sound of which the attitude was loosely reminiscent of the music approach of Dutch DIY punk band The Ex. Not long after that they started to grow into different directions and incorporated various music styles. The punk attitude became more of a point of departure than the main sound of the band.
Within the Hungarian music landscape of the 90's a protagonist band and label was Trottel (Stereodream Experience), another example of a band that started a decade earlier as a punk band within the context of totalitarian communist repression and developed a new more ethno-pychedelic sound later on. They created an important underground distro infrastructure and were a center point for contact information on different alternative bands in Hungary. PNG soon caught the attention of Trottel Records and some cassettes were released through their label and distributed across the Hungarian underground circuit.
PNG became a band I got close to during childhood in the 90's. My grandmother had moved to Szigetvár after the collapse of the communist system and my father was finally (communism collapsed) able to travel back to his native country after fleeing to Holland in 1980. Arriving to this unknown place it was almost miraculous that such a great band that had almost no other reference than itself had established itself in this small Hungarian town. My father became friends with these young musicians and an intensive creative music exchange took place. After some years past the guys of PNG had a rehearsal space in an old socialist shoe factory in town where a parallel universe existed to the regular quite poor and rough life of the Hungarian countryside. For me it was an introduction to a sort of communal setting where music and alternative leisure (people getting wasted) was the daily routine. As a child I was present at many of the rehearsals and concerts of the band. It was the first time being 5, 6 or 7 etc. years old playing drums or holding a bass guitar. I was fascinated with the whole scene and I knew they were my friends. It was life changing from the perspective of a child.
In Hungary, historically, most bands (attitude not sold separately unfortunately) come from the capital Budapest. There has always been a sort of weird bias against bands from the countryside. Nevertheless PNG did something incredible for their region and kept true to their city, identity, political stance and were not intimidated by public opinion nor popularized their sound. The music represented something of its own and proved to be of international quality (Kisvárosi Psycho). Gradually they started to play every year at the big Sziget Fesztivál in Budapest (that has an alternative origin, but corrupted into one of Europe's biggest commercial summer festivals) and they started touring abroad from Holland (a.o. OCCII Amsterdam) to Italy and from Croatia to Germany. They did so many gigs, organized many local festivals and did many other projects in their home-town Szigetvár and beyond. Eventually they developed a tight experimental nu-jazz and trip-hop infused art rock sound akin to 90's/early 00's bands like UK's Red Snapper or the underrated Polish band Robotobibok, yet maintaining an alternative edge.
I'm fortunate enough to have witnessed and grown up with this band during the entire 90's and beyond. This cassette is Persona Non Grata's first ever release from 1994. In April this year their drummer Balogh Tamás, one of Hungary's greatest drummers in general sadly passed away. I found out that the band had been looking for their first cassette in an attempt to gather their entire discography, but they couldn't find a copy anymore.
Here we are in this insane year of 2020 during their 30 Years Anniversary and I'm happy that I can recover that first cassette (my father's copy from an old dusty box here, maybe the only one that survived?). It brings back endless memories of Hungary in the 90's. Such good times. Probably those days are never coming back again but the legacy continues...
In loving memory of Balog Tamás and as tribute to Persona Non Grata (30 év!).
Industrial Asylum is a punk and post-punk compilation that was released in The Netherlands in 1983. It mostly (if not only) contains obscure English bands. I actually doubt that there is a Dutch band on here. It displays one of those characteristics of punk compilations which is to focus on a particular country, region or city and gather the various punk forces from that one place. Here some obscure groups from England were gathered to be heard by a Dutch punk audience. But aside from this cassette being released in Holland, I think most of these tracks are (and were) also quite hard to find and to hear in Britain so the release has an importance in itself.
The compilation gathers some nice post-punk and power-pop tunes, some anarcho-punk poetry, but also experimental sounds. The poems of Andy T moniker of punk poet Andrew Thorley are a returning theme on the cassette, he also released a great EP on Crass Records which he recorded in collaboration with Penny Rimbaud during the early 80's. The Manchester band Outer Edge kicks off this compilation with an energetic tune. They were also compiled on the legendary Manchester post-punk compilation Unzipping The Abstract from 1980, but aside from that I never heard other material by them. Wigan based band The System seems to be an anarcho punk group that's a bit more known. They were resurrected in the past years. The band Sons Of Earth play a weird cover of The Doors' Hello I Love You entitled 'The End'. For the rest I don't know much about the bands on here.
Some of the interesting tunes are played by bands like Untermensch, Giraffe In Flames and Oracle. Maybe someone has more information on these bands or has more recorded material. In any case this is another rare compilation of English punk and post-punk bands and is transmitting some strong musical energy here and there. The recordings are somewhat lo-fi in quality, but I think that only strengthens the punk nature.
Here's a tape I know nothing about. Apparently Buckle Mutants were a band from New Castle, Pennsylvania that consisted of C.B. Book, Savdyabitamitalo and Squiz McFiz, but something tells me that this was mainly a one-man project. From what I can make up from the cover it was sent as some sort of demo to Ducktooth Tapes of which I've never heard either.
In any case it's a DIY product of home recordings and probably not many of these tapes were made. The music of Buckle Mutants is based on experimental guitar noises that are colliding with some deranged metal tunes all non-carefully packaged with a punk attitude. Probably it's a product of the 90's, but no year is stated on the cover. Anyhow, here are some more tunes from the far out fringes of American indie music that thrived on a damaged sound production and DIY expression without compromise. Maybe someone knows more about this project.
Some different tunes than usual. In some unusual times. Buckle up mutants! I will post more frequently the coming weeks.
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!
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.
Survival Instink was a project by German musician Bernd Jestram, perhaps recorded together with others, perhaps not. There is a little child singing on one of the tracks on the B-Side. Jestram is one of the important underground musicians from East-Berlin who played in many iconic punk and experimental bands from the other side of the wall surviving the German socialist regime. Among others he played in Rosa Extra (aka Der Schwarze Kanal) which was probably East-Berlin's most important punk band that had formed already in 1979. He founded his own band Aufruhr Zur Liebe in 1984 and later joined another important experimental band called Ornament & Verbrechen. Aside from this he played in numerous other bands and did many solo works. You can find a lot of those bands and related material over at Tape Attack. Obviously none of these bands in the DDR had proper chances of releasing anything so their music circulated on tapes in the underground. They spreaded their common experience of bleakness due to the repressive totalitarian regime as well as the daily derooted alienating feeling of misplacement in a city that was torn apart by warfare and corruptive political powers.
Survival Instink was another nice project by Bernd Jestram, although a somewhat later project from 1988. I couldn't find any information about it whatsoever. It's also not listed on Discogs. It's a very loud (!) lo-fi cassette that contains some heavily distorted cyber garage-punk dedicated to urban dystopia. Lots of raw guitar sounds, manic drum machine clattering, and dark distorted vocals. The music probably appeals to fans of Chrome, Strafe Für Rebellion or Second Layer and even reminds me of equally obscure stuff like the rock era of Salò Mentale or Spalanzanis Töchter.
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
Music From The White House was a series of compilations on the cult home-taping label Exart from The Netherlands that was created by Hessel Veldman aka Y Create (also in Gorgonzola Legs) and his wife Nick Nicole. The compilations were made around different countries: Holland, England, France and the United States.
On Music From The White House Vol. 4: France only home-taping acts are compiled from the French 80's underground. Amongst others present is the experimental noise of Brume, the Artaud and De Sade inspired sounds of vulgarity by Suckdog affiliate Costes and the improvisation of Klimperei and La Sonorité Jaune. Furthermore there are some French lo-fi synth-punk tracks by the Dirty Husbands, Cripure S.A. and Hermaphrodisiak which all remind me of Kas Product. Lastly there is a minimal synth track by DZ Lectric and Anton Shield and some miscellaneous home-taping tracks throughout the whole compilation.
Another nice compilation from the 80's containing some better and some worse tracks that display the uncompromising home-taping spirit of the time in the context of transnational music exchange. The Exart label on which this was published functioned as one of the key cassette labels of The Netherlands in terms of home-taping distribution. Soon I will upload the Music From The White House: USA cassette as well.
This cassette was kindly donated to the blog by Hessel Veldman/Y Create.
Message:
Crazy enough, I've got Archaic Inventions mapped out for at least a whole year: if not longer. The amount of never heard material and new content is vast, mind-blowing and extends into many different musical genres. Also I am working hard on establishing the upcoming record label simultaneously with various sound-art and podcast projects. Furthermore I'm developing a live-set of my own music that will see the light this summer.
The digitization process demands time and I have to balance all these different projects. I'll try to do the best I can to keep up the consistency of the blog, but there will be moments which will demand prioritizing my attention to one of these directions. Thanks to all supporting the blog (some of you since many years)! Lots of stuff still to come! - Bence AI
