Flagrum - Occulitur Ante Verba -1996- (Cassette, Mastix Materiae), Hungary

Here we have another obscurity from the Hungarian underground of the 90's. Flagrum was an experimental minimalist metal band from Budapest that consisted of Tibor Gáll, János Gáll and  Levente Borsay. They started around 1992 and released their first album Per Ipsum in 1995 both domestically (cassette) and on the Czech Malarie label (vinyl). However, their second album Occulitur Ante Verba is probably their best work and even less known.

During the 90's there were obviously lots of different bands in Hungary. The metal, punk and hardcore genres were very much alive during that decade. That music was cultivated on aesthetics and ideologies that were not easy to put forward before the collapse of the totalitarian socialist regime. Surely these genres were already developing during communist times, but the full potential wasn't felt publicly yet because there was no infrastructure for their output. It was only from the 1990's on that alternative festivals were created and new communities of people started to carry alternative and independent culture through music and lifestyle.

Flagrum is one of those bands that operated deeply in the Hungarian underground of the 90's. Even in Hungary they are largely a mystery. During an era in which lots of new music from outside was rapidly entering the country a large proportion of bands was just imitating whatever they could hear. Flagrum on the other hand was more alone in its genre. They had a sort of doomish metal sound, but stripped it down to the bare minimum. Their music is fully instrumental, minimal and repetitive leaning towards an experimental No-Wave sound that is perhaps a bit reminiscent of Swans. There's a Godflesh inspiration too. I wrote about that some time ago regarding the Hungarian band Carwashtagnacht.

More unknown sounds from the Eastern European alternative music landscape of the 90's. (If you can, try to listen to this while having an Unicum!). Élvezd!

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Sniffin' The Evidence - 15 Minutes Of Hard Labour -1990- (Cassette, Rat Product), Netherlands

I had a look at what to post on a historical date like today and ended up finding this one. Sniffin' The Evidence was a duo comprised of Etwin van Eedtveld and René Claus from the southern Dutch town of Maastricht. 15 Minutes Of Hard Labour was released privately and I don't know whether anything else was ever done by them later on. Their sound revolves around heavy drum machine patterns, distorted guitars and cut-up fragments of political speeches and such. It can be placed in a longer tradition of experimental music using, abusing or criticizing political themes. A sound that has been put forward a.o. by bands like (late) Cabaret Voltaire or Mark Stewart + The Maffia and Tackhead. It also reminds me of the Dutch band á Suivre that existed years before in Rotterdam.

I left the cassette unindexed because the tracks mostly flow into each other and hard stops would cause too much interruption of the whole.

Kindly donated by the Y Create archive

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Haverslizurd - Self-Titled -1989- (Cassette, Carrier Communications), US

In this particular case I'm not entirely sure whether Haverslizurd is the name of the band or the title of the album, but in any case we can rectify that in a later stage (check the cover). Apparently this was an obscure American band from the late 80's that hailed from Richmond, Virginia. Probably Carrier Communications was their own cassette label, but I can't find any information on it.

The music consists of some darker improvised lo-fi industrial rock that is sometimes accompanied by drum computer patterns and saxophone sounds. Actually also not too far away from dark ambient soundscapes at times. It has this swampy American industrial rock sound which reminds me a.o. of the (cassette) material by the US band Pain Teens, but also of the great industrial sound of Factrix from San Francisco. In more recent history a band like Destruction Unit also comes to mind.

No other info for now!

Kindly donated by the Y Create archive 

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Dust And The Minds - Obsessioneel En Non-Stop -198X- (Cassette, Egmondse Klank Opsessie E.K.O. 11), Netherlands

Dust And The Minds were a free form-rock and improvisation home-taping outfit from the small village of Egmond aan den Hoef in The Netherlands. The main members were the brothers Fred and John Valkering, but they were always accompanied by lots of other musicians. The Valkering brothers established their cassette label Egmondse Klank Opsessie to release their different musical disguises like Dust And The Minds, Comrades Creating, Hafre as well as solo works. The music on the E.K.O. label consists mostly of punk, free improvisation, dub and post-punk.

Obsessioneel En Non-Stop is an album by Dust And The Minds that consists of two side-long pieces of improvisational jams. It's quite special that this small community of people from a village in Holland had such an extensive output of releases. I've got more material of this label coming to the blog and most of the releases are real pieces of DIY-art containing posters, self-created boxes, cut-ups, drawings and even books. I find it curious how so much great music was released on E.K.O. yet I never really heard this label being mentioned by people when it comes to the Dutch home-taping underground

Enjoy this first lo-fi tape of home-made jams by Dust And The Minds, their other releases are upcoming and there's already a lot to be found on No Longer Forgotten Music, but I don't know if the links are still working after all those years.

Kindly donated by the Y Create archive

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Down With People - Same -1990- (LP, Circularphile Records/Nadirean Extensions), US

Down With People was an experimental art rock outfit from Rochester, New York that consisted of Jan Cermak (voice, clarinet percussion), Jack Schaefer (guitar), Zeppi (Bass), John Grieco (drums), Brad Watson (violin), Dan Schelley (bassoon), Steve Peck (trombone) and Carl German (organ).

DWP is a classic example of absurd art rock groups from the US reminding me of dozens of bands, from The Jaunties to Care of The Cow to Blacklight Braille etc! Its existence at the beginning of the 90's makes that the band is portraying a hybrid sound in-between the weird art damaged rock from the 70's and 80's and a more indie sound that would become dominant in the 90's. There are various songs with strange lyrics, deconstructed rock moments and lots of improvisation. I guess the band is a good example of the transition of musical decades, holding on to a DIY ethic with their crazy artwork and experimental approach as well as a healthy dose of absurdism and critique of society in a proto-indie or grunge manifestation.

The bass player Zeppi also did an experimental album in 1988 on the same label Nadirean Extensions. It was posted on the great, now inactive, music blog Continuo ages ago.

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Před Vaším Letopočtem - Same -1991- (LP, Primus), Czech Republic

Although obviously there are many exceptions, the musical decade of the nineties in Eastern Europe (or the former socialist countries in Europe, as you wish) is largely the equivalent of underground music in the seventies and eighties in the west. Not only was it after the fall of the iron curtain that previously unknown and "illegal" bands were able to finally publish their music, also their influence trickled down into fresh bands of the beginning and mid-nineties. Because of a certain creativity that was mediated by or against political inlfuences as well as certain underground music traditions from before the communist system collapsed, the music was not always based on trying to be western or something hype. People understood how they related to their own national underground. Due to a slight delay in getting familiar with new genres and contemporary music finding its way randomly to Eastern Europe in the early nineties (and also before) the music there developed fragmented. Nevertheless, in result it was often taken a lot less shallow by the people than in western countries where there was a constant musical (production) overload combined with a constant competitiveness of setting the new tone. The nineties in Eastern Europe were musically an open field field of creativity, an explosion of freedom. It was a moment of hope, change and seizing the moment to harvest full creative potential.

Před Vaším Letopočtem was a Czech trio from Prague that consisted of Vlastislav Matoušek on bass and vocals, František Janče on guitar and vocals and Jan Jeřábek on keyboards and vocals. Musically they play a quite simplistic and repetitive rock music that thrives on wave-y patterns and occasional experiments encompanied by lyrics in Czech. Obviously they stand on that verge of the change of pollitical systems sharing some of their sounds with peer-bands like Půlnoc, Máma Bubo or Onkel Zbynda’s Winterrock (O.Z.W.). It also hints a bit to Czech synth band Betula Pendula (that made an album not really worth to listen to) and even to the Greek group Chapter 24.

It's not as groundbreaking as some of the stuff I am about to post from Eastern Europe the coming year on the blog, but it's definitely nice unclassifiable underground stuff that carries a free spirit and shows the Czech Underground in full effect. Před Vaším Letopočtem also released another cassette in the same period. If anyone could share that one I'd be very grateful!

Get it HERE