Unovidual - Parianoia -1985- (Cassette, Stichting Stopcontact), Belgium

I'm very happy to present another Flemish minimal synth gem by Unovidual aka Henk Wallays. I posted his other cassette Vetganzen In Jacquet three years ago on the blog and I notice that I wrote so much contextual information that it's hard to add something there. But let's try nevertheless.

Unovidual was a project by Henk Wallays who made electronic home-taping music during the 80's in the small Flemish town of Aalter. Under the Unovidual moniker quite some cassettes were released and he contributed to numerous international tape compilations. Wallays was also involved with the Micrart Group that included bands like Linear Movement and Autumn that have become iconic for the Belgian electronic wave sound of the 80's and far beyond. Aside from his solo work Wallays had an intensive and special music exchange with American home-taper Tara Cross with whom he recorded a couple of great songs.

Parianoia is another wonderful collection of minimal synth tracks by Unovidual and it's also one of his lesser known releases. It was distributed through the Amsterdam based Stichting Stopcontact label that was responsible for releasing some legendary tapes by bands like Five Times Of Dust, Tranquil Eyes and S.M. Nurse as well as the Contactdisc vinyl series. Parianoia reminds me a bit of a library music album in the sense that it collects many short tracks that each have their own mood or atmosphere. It also sounds like it could have been the soundtrack to a videogame at times. Some nice anolog electronic tracks of which some are more ambient, but most are comprised of experimental elements and some collages.

Some of these tracks seem to sound quite ahead of their time. I think this is another example of minimal synth home experimentation of the 80's that plays its part in the history of electronic music in general. A sound reminiscent of Ende Shneafliet, John Bender or Das Ding to name a few. Minimal synth galore!

Kindly donated by Orpheu The Wizard

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Arthur Berkhoff - Spectrum Analysis At The Computer -1983- (APB5, Cassette), Netherlands

Arthur Berkhoff was a Dutch representative of the international Neoist movement who was heavily involved in mail-art and the home-taping culture. Neoism is a specific art movement that was based on playing with collective identities, the reproduction of artworks as well as the usage of fake art and plagiarism. Most of the neoist artists create and publish under the name of Monty Cantsin, a name that was created in the late 70's and mostly adopted by the Hungarian artist István Kantor as the identity for an "open" popstar to be used by others. Actually neoism has a great concept that could be applied even today to topics like the dissolvement of identity, open source platforms, collective art projects, copyright etc.

Neoism and its Mail-art output ofcourse also flourished within the home-taping circles and many protagonist home-taping artists have used neoist concepts and contributed to the movement. From Graf Haufen to Monte Cazzaza and from GX Jupitter-Larsen to Vittore Baroni just to name a few. Dutch artist Arthur Berkhoff was making art and cassettes in Amsterdam during the 80's through which he established his own futuristic "Pregroperativism" movement. It was a strange one-man mythology that consisted (from what I can tell) of a mix of space, technology, cybernetics and neoist art concepts. All the music was recorded in his Orguna Laboratory and most of the tracks are long improvised experimental electronic pieces with voices and noises.

Spectrum Analysis At The Computer is another great cassette from the Dutch home-taping culture of the 80's and a real alien piece of music. The music also reflects Berkhoff's strong dedication to his Pregroperativist universe. Some of his other works can be found over at No Longer Forgotten Music and check out a collection of his conceptual films over here.

This is some cyberpunk avant la lettre (or at least an early example). 

From the collection Allard Pierson/NPI

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Ice Cream Blisters - + / Or -1987- (Cassette, GGE Records), US

Here's another cassette by Ice Cream Blisters, a band from Kent, Ohio that was formed by Mike Crooker and Chris Mezzolesta with the involvement of friends. These same people also created their cassette label GGE Records that played an important role in the American home-taping circuit, releasing own and other US home-taping acts as well as collaborations with foreign home-tapers. As far as I know Ice Cream Blisters released about five tapes. I posted their When Nature Fails, Art Steps In cassette from 1986 last year on the blog.

+ / Or is a much more experimental release by the group containing lengthy synthesizer adventures, guitar manipulation, wind and brass instrument improvisation and fine field recordings. Along the way topics like Second World War and Christmas are touched on with a genuine love for absurdism. It's another great example of the free spirited American home-taping scene that had an uncompromising drive to create music. It also represents the distinct American music tradition based on the expression of the weird and the wacky. The approach and sound of Ice Cream Blisters keeps reminding me of Blacklight Braille, but ofcourse there are plenty of other strange American bands from that like-minded realm that existed during the 80's (and actually well before that), specially in the deeper abyss of the home-taping universe.

Maybe more Ice Cream Blisters will surface in the future. At least here's another one!

Kindly donated by the Y Create Archive

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13 - 11 - Temporization -1988- (Cassette, TN/N 001), Poland

13 - 11 were a one-off improvisational outfit from Warsaw that consisted of Monika Szczecińska (Percussion), Bolek Błaszczyk (Cello and Keyboards), Michał Rollinger (Saxophone), Sernik (Tape, Guitar) and Jarek Siwiński (Keyboards). The group was named after the date on which they played this live-opus in Warsaw on the 11th of November 1988 at the Riviera-Remont Klub. Simultaneously, the 11th of November is the Polish National Independence Day on which Poland gained autonomy from the German, Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires in 1918. Whether that plays a role on this cassette is unclear.

When looking at the members of this group the name of Bolek Błaszczyk provides the most context for me. Błaszczyk is a cellist that played in several important Polish underground groups like Legendarne Ząbki. He also played together with the magical Rock In Opposition outfit Cukor, Bila Smert' (Цукор Бiла Смерть) from the Kiev underground scene (Ukraine). You can hear their collaboration on their beautiful album called Selo from 1993.

13 - 11 is a project that can be placed in the light of the Polish experimental underground of the 80's, the extensive Polish jazz and improvisation history and in the larger context of the Eastern European Rock In Opposition tradition. Even though the sound fidelity of this obscure tape is not very high the band displays a wonderful interplay of improvisational jazz, ambient electronics and cinematographic sound collage all subtly based on the city of Warsaw and the temporality of different places and their atmospheres. It's almost a soundtrack to a non-existing film at times. The music was recorded live as a continuous opus of which the compositions flow into each other. Because of that it was not easy to index this tape, so I left some tracks to transition into the following track. The music reminds me of their peer-band Kirkut-Koncept that also played in a similar style. Somehow the 90's project Kaddish by Towering Inferno also comes to mind, maybe because of its thematic approach.

A lo-fi sound quality cassette from behind the iron curtain again, but this truly is another masterpiece of the Polish underground of the 80's.

This tape was limited to 40 copies.

Highly recommended!

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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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

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