Harry Sparnaay - Ladder of Escape -1986- (LP, Attacca), Netherlands

Next stop is another modern composed record by Dutch bass clarinetist Harry Sparnaay. Ladder of Escape consists of six compositions for bass clarinet by composers from all over the world. There is a Korean, Dutch, two Australian, American and a Spanish composer present on this record. An earlier Sparnaay album on this blog can be found here.

Ladder of Escape is a kind of metaphor for the way in which Sparnaay helped to promote and free the bass clarinet of its conservative and dull image. Ladder of Escape is also a piece on here dedicated to the memory of Spanish Catalan painter and artist Joan Miró. Most of the compositions are solo pieces on the bass clarinet. The composition I uploaded below is a long piece called For Bass Clarinet and Tape composed by Australian composer Martin Wesley-Smith. It has a hectic almost RIO or Zappa-esque touch to it and merges the bass clarinet with electronics.Very nice.

Though perhaps a curiosity of the past, the bass clarinet has now thrown off its chains. Through its limitations it has fought its way to freedom. Indeed, if the bass clarinet was formerly regarded as a chained instrument, it needed a Houdini like Harry Sparnaay to free this "low-keyed lady" under the instruments from her isolation.

Get it HERE

Donated by Kim

Vágtázó Halottkémek (Galloping Coroners) - Live and Practice -1986- (Tape), Hungary

Vágtázó Halottkémek (VHK), in English Galloping Coroners, in German Rasende Leichenbeschauer is a Hungarian shamanistic noise-rock band. They are artistically rooted in Hungarian mythological stories, ancient Hungarian imagery and cosmic theories. They started out in the end of the seventies, but only released their first proper albums by the end of the eighties when those possibilities came to existence for these kind of bands from behind the iron curtain. During the early eighties they did manage to put a song on the legendary international sampler "Fix Planet" (1981) compiled by NDW legends Der Plan. They were featured alongside bands as Esplendor Geometrico from Spain and Fra Lippo Lippi from Norway. Der Plan describes the song on the back of Fix Planet as:

"The name of the band means "whizzing dead spys" and we don't dare telling who they are. Two of us met two of them once, we were all drunk and it was in Budapest, Hungary's strange capital."

As for the Music: It's the recording of two concerts in 1985 and 1986 in Budapest and two rehearsal songs. The songs are recognizable from their official albums which I suggest you should check out (not sure where) before you listen to these live versions drenched in white noise. I consider these albums to be at least among the top ten best albums from Eastern Europe from the eighties. The music can be defined as instinctive primeval music eliberating the elementary powers of nature creating ourselves and revolting to its high completion in a free spontaneity and overwhelming energy.

To me this is really one of Hungary's finest bands. I've seen them play live last summer in Budapest which was one of the best concerts I had seen in a while. They had reformed and had recorded their latest album called Veled Haraptat Csillagot! / Bite The Stars! It's still in print so get that while you can!

Get this historical tape HERE

Tokyo Kid Brothers - Songs Of The Story Of Eight Dogs -1971- (LP, Dutch Private Pressing), Japan

This vinyl is a private pressing of the recording of the play “The Story of Eight Dogs” by Japanese musical theatre group Tokyo Kid Brothers. In 1971 they played the "The Story of Eight Dogs" for five weeks at the Shaffy Theatre in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. This record came out in very limited quantities in Holland during their period of performing in Amsterdam.

These NWW-listers stand in a similar tradition as other counter-cultural musical theatre outfits like the American Living Theatre or Théâtre Du Chêne Noir from France. Tokyo Kid Brothers was founded by Yutaka Higashi in 1968 and made some very weird recordings during the early seventies like the albums “Throw away the books let’s go into the streets” and "Golden Bat" from 1971. Those are being regarded as two of the most important cornerstones of Japanese freak-out psychedelia from the seventies. They should reissue that stuff on vinyl. Tokyo Kid Brothers' early sound was reminiscent of other Japanese acid fuelled underground groups like J.A. Seazer and Food Brain, but also brings to mind some of the more free-form krautrock bands like Amon Düül and Faust. During that era The Tokyo Kid Brothers performed quite often outside of Japan, like New York and Amsterdam.

This recording has some great seventies underground jams combined with intense Japanese vocals. Also the difference between audience and actors at times becomes blurry when they involve the audience and try to teach them about Japanese language characters and so on in a subversive and playful manner. All with a great Japanese English accent.

My copy is not in the best shape as you can see and is quite crackly. It might have had an insert, but I don’t have it. The record doesn’t list titles of the songs, which doesn’t really matter, because it was meant as a play. Anyway this is crazily rare if you’d ask me and absolutely essential to all Japanese psych-heads and NWW-list fans.

“The history of eight dogs is the story of the Japanese young generation in reality and illusion. We came to Holland: Exodus from Japan!”

Get it HERE! Or check it out here:

Friedhelm Döhl - Odradek - Black & White -1978- (LP, Dieter Roth's Verlag), Germany/Switzerland

Friedhelm Döhl (born 7 July 1936 in Göttingen) is a German composer and professor of music. He has composed many works of avant-garde music created for piano, chamber groups, voice and electronics.

This record, which was published through the artist label of well known Swiss fluxus-artist Dieter Roth, has two sides of long pieces for piano. The A-side contains the piece "Odradek" composed for two open and prepared pianos and performed in 1976 in Basel, Switzerland. It's an improvisational piece which according to the liner notes could not get captured entirely on vinyl. Therefore the beginning and ending contain almost only silence. The B-side has the improvisational piece "Black & White" which was recorded in 1977 in Basel for Dieter Roth.

This recording contains very minimalistic piano based sounds in which the piano itself is used in a very unconventional manner. A true "artist-record". 

Get it HERE

Harry Sparnaay, Fusion Moderne - Bass Clarinet Identity -1978- (LP, Composers' Voice), Netherlands

So it's finally time for something modern composed on this blog. At first glance this looks like a quite dull classical record cover, but wait, who is peeking through the pillars of the post-apocalyptic ruins? It's Harry Sparnaay! Sparnaay is a very renowned Dutch bass clarinetist, composer and teacher. At this particular record Sparnaay plays solo pieces as well as with pianist Polo de Haas under the name Fusion Moderne.

This record shows his mastering of the instrument through five pieces composed by mainly Dutch avant-garde composers. At times the instrument itself is not recognizable any more and tends to go towards some real drone-like music. Some pieces like the 18-minute-long Mountains have electronic tape manipulations and synthesizer additions.

My favourite piece here is the haunting Chimaera from 1974 where they use weird background tape-noise in combination with the bass clarinet. On the liner note it says: "The confrontation between the two (clarinet and tape-noise) works like an exorcism in which the soloist tries to exorcise the inscrutability of the background with his background." Sounds good.

This is some nice modern composed electro-acoustic stuff which you don't see that often in combination with a bass clarinet.

Get it HERE

Donated by Kim

Unit Eight - Glass Head -1981- (LP, Rouge, RMS/LP 130), UK

So I'm a huge fan of library records, specially if it involves electronic music. My main problem is that I always have trouble knowing which ones are the pearls (any suggestions are welcome!). Usually I go for the ones that do not contain eighty songs of twenty seconds, but have got proper songs on there. Still, a lot of library records can be quite cheesy. But not this one!

Unit Eight consisted of two people: F. McDonald and C. Rae. They had at least four releases on Rouge and this one comes from 1981. Rouge was a sub-label of the legendary British library records distribution label De Wolfe. The music on this record is described as Modern group sounds featuring electronic keyboards played by Unit Eight. You can find many library records over at this excellent blog.

This is an absolute cosmic disco, minimal synth classic. It has some cheesy library music touches to it, but nevertheless it's a record with almost only A-sides. Every melody seems like it has always existed and all the songs get stuck in the head. It's the missing link between stuff like Gary Numan/Tubeway Army, Yellow Magic Orchestra, Space (magic fly) and library minimal synth. It also reminds me of Latvian electronic space disco group Zodiac and the Philippe Laboudigue songs on this record. So it has a lot of dancefloor value because of the great combination of electronics with some more commercial melodies.

Our new favourite minimal synth record?

Get it HERE

Ápolók - Szeder Demo -198X- & Artis Studió -1989- (Cassette), Hungary

Ápolók, actually written áPolók, is one of Hungary's finest Avant-Garde groups to come out of the eighties. They started out in 1982 and were not from the capital Budapest, but came from a city in the North-East of Hungary called Miskolc. Their name means "The nurses" if translated to English. The city Miskolc is known for its heavy industry and its raw edge. Not coincidentally one of the songs on the Szeder Demo ("Blackberry Demo") side starts with a cacaphonic take on The Beatles' A Hard Day's Night.

Much like their peers A.E. Bizottsag (check them out), Ápolók uses absurdist lyrics, Casio SK-1-driven punk, post-punk sounds and other wonky guitar and piano based movements reminiscent of some R.I.O. bands. They are definitely one of the most underrated weirdo bands to come from Hungary. I'm not quite sure if they ever had proper releases of their old stuff. Even in Hungary they are somewhat of a cultband and quite unknown. In the nineties they did manage to tour around through Europe.This cassette seems a self-made creation of apparently a demo and a studio recording.

Ápolók nowadays still exists through other weird Hungarian bands in which some of the members play, like Büdösök and Csermanek Lakótelep. The cassette did not contain a tracklist, although I'm sure the songs have in fact titles. If you want to know more about Ápolók you have to read this article over here by someone who really got into the whole Ápolók myth.Check below for a song and how a concert of Ápolók  looked like.

Highly recommended and so so underrated!

Get it HERE