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

Get it HERE

Buckle Mutants - Time Walk -199X- (Single-Sided Tape, Self-Released), US

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.

Get it HERE

Liza Neliaz - 3 Absolute Items -1988- (Cassette, Self-Released), Belgium

Liza Néliaz (1958 - 2001) was a Belgian electronic dance music producer and hardcore techno DJ from Ostend. Coming from a musical family s/he started out making music in the early 80's as part of different Belgian new-wave groups with which s/he also toured around often. During this decade Neliaz was involved with the home-taping circuit making lots of music ranging from industrial to experimental proto-dance styles. S/he also contributed tracks to international cassette compilations. An example is the compilation Music From The White House: France that came out on the great Exart label that was ran by Dutch home-taper Hessel Veldman (he and his wife Nicole also established a close friendship with Liza later).

During her lifetime Liza Neliaz lived everywhere and nowhere and had a nomadic approach to a life that was fully dedicated to music. For years s/he lived in France, but s/he also resided in London as well as spending many years in Holland. By the end of the 80's and the early 90's Neliaz was one of the key people who immaculately envisioned the connection between the electronic wave sound of the 80's and the newly risen dance music genres and rave culture. Her home-made dance music work can be seen as an evolutionary missing link of the techno and house revolution. Neliaz used a live set-up of hardware that could play entire live sets producing many different sounding tracks that would follow each other up in a sequence without leaving breaks in-between. S/he took the skills s/he developed as a home-taper and developed it into this trance inducing live-set formula that would later become prevalent in dance music. Some of that amazing early dance music will come to the blog later on this year.

During the 90's Neliaz would give up live music to become an important hardcore techno and gabber DJ, producer and a household name of the underground rave culture. S/he passed away too early in 2001. Until this day Liza Neliaz is still praised for her work and her DJ mixes and is refered to as an inspiration in hardcore techno circles.

On this short self-released tape we can hear a sound that still leans more towards the 80's, but is already rather dancefloor oriented with funk influences. One of the tracks is dedicated to the Slovenian industrial group Laibach. On this tape we can already hear how tracks merge into each other: it's that (live-set) approach that makes this so ahead of its time.

In loving memory of Liza 'N Eliaz.

Kindly donated by the Y Create archive

Get it HERE

Korai Öröm - Live -199X- (Cassette, Self-Released), Hungary

Korai Öröm are a psychedelic and tribal band from Hungary that started out in the early 90's in the wake of the fall of the iron curtain and the end of the socialist system. At that time the gates of Eastern Europe were flooded with new sounds that came into the newly liberated countries and the neo-psychedelic 90's hit harder than anyone would have imagined. Tribal gatherings, free festivals and dance music styles changed the musical landscape and pirate radio stations (in the case of Hungary Tilos Radio meaning Forbidden Radio) started to transmit the music of the new underground and the neo-psychedelic revolution.

Korai Öröm was a band with many members that played free-flow jams that were a mix of psychedelic rock, tribal rhythms, electronics, downtempo and experimental sounds. The tradition of Hungarian jam music and the channeling of a free form stream of music can be traced back to the Shamanic rock group Vágtázó Halottkémek that can be seen as the originator of the genre within the Hungarian underground.

During the 90's Korai Öröm became increasingly more known playing many festivals as well as concerts outside of Hungary. They created some iconic albums during their first decade capturing the 90's underground mentality in a re-opened democratic Hungary that was searching to realize its new potential. It was the moment in which music was here. Music was now. Music was liberating. This rare tape is a collection of obscure unknown live recordings by the band from the mid 90's capturing the communal aspect of the Hungarian underground at the time through some lo-fi psychedelic jams. It reminds me somewhat of the Serbian psychedelic band Igra Staklenih Perli from Belgrade.

Get it HERE

Various Artists - Canada - Italy / Italia - Canada -1987- (LP, 3ViTrePAIR)

This is an interesting sound-poetry record I found in Italy not too long ago. It came out on the wonderful 3ViTrePAIR label that was founded by Enzo Minarelli, an Italian artist and sound-poet that played a protagonist role in gathering sound-poetry artists on different compilations and hosting poetry festivals during the 80's. He created compilation series around his concept of Polipoesia, that was based upon a manifest on poetry he created. The series were each dedicated to the poetry exchange between different countries. Here we have the compilation that focused on sound poetry from Canada and Italy.

The Canadian poets on the compilation are all from Quebec so the main language used here is French, hence the references to Antonin Artaud the French dramatist and subversive theatre director who also did strange recordings on radio that could be seen as sound poetry to a certain extent. In the liner notes written by Minarelli references are also made to French poets like Henri Chopin and Bernard Heidsieck. The Canadian representatives on this compilation are Pierre-André Arcand, Jean-Claude Gagnon, Alain-Martin Richard, Richard Martel and Gilles Arteau. The poets from Italy are aside from Minarelli himself Gian Paolo Roffi, Corrado Cicciarelli, Massimo Mori and Luigi Pasotelli. Sound poetry has always been important in Italy and this series is another strong example.

The music ranges from sound experiments to casiotone rhythm minimalism to the use of mouth harps, voice manipulation and more. It gives a mail-art music feeling from back in those days that can be experienced on compilation series like the VEC Audio Exchange for example. Here are some contextual words from the liner notes:

It seems, today, after a great deal of sound poetry is touching the limits of the extremest noise, denying value to the word, almost atomized, if not disapeared because it has been reduced to non-significant sound, the thread of the word is taken up again, proposing it in its natural shape. [sic.] Such a return to and into the word can also be explained as a return to a more immediate communication, to a listening pleasure, keeping in the right side the needs of the audience in a theatre or in front of a TV. The authors herewith included prove and point out how the sound experimentation is no longer synonym of ambiguity of communication, but is still possible practising sound experimentation with intelligent grace and refined, oral taste. In a word, more harmony, less disharmony. So, sound poetry is, or can be for those who want to understand, the next step of certain written poetry, at least the right entry door to continue into the oral a process of invention that in the written field it's no longer original and it is still into the most stagnant impasse. - Enzo Minarelli

Get it HERE / Mirror Link

Yanti Bersaudara - Anggrek Merah -1971- (Cassette, Bali BL 5070), Indonesia

*Archaic Inventions 7 Year Anniversary Post!*

Some time ago I stumbled on some Indonesian cassettes at the city flea market here in Amsterdam. In Holland there still is an extensive legacy of Indonesian music because of the colonial period of the Dutch East Indies of which practically nothing good can be said. Nevertheless Indonesian culture has luckily been integrated in the Dutch society and played a hugely important role for the development of popular music. Bands like The Blue Diamonds or the Tielman Brothers were some of the first combo's to bring Rock 'n Roll music to The Netherlands in the early 60's which then resulted in the entire culture of pop and rock music that goes on until today. 

Also many Indonesian musicians were important for the development of Dutch jazz. A book about that came out recently but can only be red in Dutch I'm afraid. A jazz singer like Henny Vonk is good example of this Indonesian influence in Jazz. She was also involved with the mythical experimental jazz-rock album Banten. Through the connection with Indonesia sometimes some old records or in this case cassettes pop up here and there in Holland.

Yanti Bersadaura or in English The Yanti Sisters were a popular group of singers from the city of Bandung on the island Java that is also known for its rich Gamelan music tradition. Yanti Bersadaura consisted of the three sisters Yani, Tina and Lin and existed only during the early 70's. After their first album they performed at many places around Indonesia and got more popular across the country. They also had occasional television appearances. But shortly after two of the sisters got married they fell apart leaving behind just a couple of records.

Anggrek Merah (Red Orchid) is one of their first albums from 1971 and displays a wonderful interplay of soft-psych arrangements, rock 'n roll influences and early 70's organ exotica. You can even hear the built-in rhythm box of the 60's organ leading some of the songs. This album has been shared before and can be found elsewhere online. From what I know it has been released on vinyl in Indonesia and Singapore and is fetching some insane prices today. The thing with those old records from that part of the world is that their quality is rarely pristine. The digitized copies online have lots of cracks and pop which is ofcourse completely understandable. Still that's why I figured it would be nice to share this never played cassette since there is almost no loss of sound quality (it's a cassette!). 

The label putting out this cassette somehow decided to extend the original Anggrek Merah album with tracks by singer Annie Rae which doesn't show on the front cover, but is a nice extra on this great cassette of Indonesian female singers. The music of the Yanti Sisters reminds me of the all female rock and roll band Dara Puspita from Indonesia but also resembles the Japanese trio Moko, Beaver & Olive or maybe even the Girls From Bahia from Brazil.

Fly away to 70's Indonesia, see and smell some red orchids in the sun, it's time to experience some psychedelic exotica sounds. 

Get your ticket HERE

Message:
So much incredible home-taping cassettes are coming to the blog soon, the material is overwhelming. I just try to do what I can. Thank you all for the support throughout the years! - Bence AI

Lister - Innlysende Samtaler Og Forutbestemte Avtaler -1984- (Tape, Self-Released), Norway

Originally from Oslo, Stein Inge Larsen, better known as André Lister, moved to Trondheim in the mid-70's with the intention of becoming a primary school teacher. However, once in contact with the city's music-driven scene he became a central part of it.

The lack of music press in Norway at that time instigated the creation of the first fanzines, that actually originated in Trondheim due to its vibrant punk and hard rock community. The first one to appear was Asfaltfilla, an anarchist fanzine which shared a lot of the common elements that could be found in similar counter-cultural publications at the time. André Lister was one of the heads behind it and an avid rejector of punk's intellectualization. Asfaltfilla would eventually result in the creation of the punk music fanzine Rockefilla.

André Lister had been part of many bands such as Sjolord, but ultimately distanced himself from punk and started to lean towards sonic experimentation and the use of synthesizers and drum machines, as it became apparent in some of his solo projects as Lister, while also forming Norwegian experimental cult rock band Det Elektriske Kjøkken. As a result, and as way to publish their albums, the band decided to start the label Oh Yeah! and its sub-label Oh No!

Innlysende Samtaler Og Forutbestemte Avtaler (Obvious Calls And Predefined Agreements) is one of Lister's first solo projects in which he pursues further the electronic domain combining long swirling synthesizer sounds with prog-like bass and guitar riffs as well as the occasional use of rhythm machines without losing its home-made DIY feel. You can expect a soothing psychedelic trip with some recording imperfections all along the tape (the first track suffers from a technical default that turns mono at some point), enjoy! 

André Lister died in 2016 in Tanger at the age of 63 where he decided to live the rest of his days. 

- Juan Vacas

* The information made available above is an adaptation from the information retrieved from his obituary in a Norwegian newspaper and the book "Sid's Norwegian romance: Sex Pistols exiled in Trondheim 1977" (2012).

Get it HERE