Liza N. Eliaz - Sensecruise Part 2 -19XX- (Cassette, Self-Released), Belgium

Liza Néliaz (1958 - 2001) was an electronic dance music producer and hardcore techno DJ from Oostende, Belgium. During the late 70's Néliaz was part of different Belgian avant-garde and new-wave bands. In the 80's Neliaz was strongly involved with the international home-taping network and contributed her tracks to cornerstone compilations on pivotal cassette labels like Insane Music (Belgium) and Exart (Netherlands).

By the late 80's, Neliaz started to play a self-invented style of proto-dance music that somehow connected the DIY spirit of 80's home-taping with new beat and the upcoming rave culture that would later evolve into established genres like techno, hardcore and acid house. She was a pioneer (one out of many ofcourse) in exploring these new musical styles in which perhaps the most important element was musical continuity. No breaks were taken in-between the tracks. Through her inventive hardware set-up she was able to play a variety of different tracks that were weaving in and out of each other continuously resulting in what we would call a "live-set" today. From the 90's onward Liza 'N' Eliaz established herself as an important hardcore techno DJ which granted her the underground title of Queen of Terror. The name Liza was adopted because in those days it used to be a nickname given to Trans people in Flanders. She used her abilities as a musician for her DJ-sets that were uncompromising, lethal and full of energy. Neliaz lived a nomadic lifestyle dedicated to music until the end of her life. She sadly passed away in 2001.

Sensecruise Part 2 is an early cassette by Liza Neliaz that was released around 1989 or 1990. It's the sequel to the Sensecruise Part 1 cassette which I've never heard. Unfortunately there is no cover for this tape, but who knows whether this was properly distributed at the time in the first place. Musicwise it embodies the sound of the transition of decades and the birth of a new sound of the 90's. Sensecruise Part 2 contains a pretty spot on home-made rave sound. I filed this release under "Belgium", but it clearly could have been recorded in France or England at the time. The music resembles the early work of 808 State or Orbital here and there, big acts (as we all know) that would soon succesfully spread similar sounds on a worldwide scale. However Liza Néliaz was never interested in the commercial aspects of dance music and couldn't identify with the course the culture took when free parties were starting to decline and certain DJ's were gaining so called star levels bringing competition and jealousy into a free music culture. Her DJ sets could sound relentless at times, yet humor, interaction and joy through the music were the main reasons behind Liza's musical practices.

Maybe it's the first time some kind of dance music comes to the blog, but also that is part of the underground music kaleidoscope of the past decades. Another piece of the Liza Neliaz puzzle at least. A special musician that deserves some proper attention from labels out there. Maybe someone has more early recordings?

Here's another article in French about Liza Néliaz that also provided some of the information above.

Kindly donated by Hessel Veldman (Y Create Archive)

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The Final Curtain - Self-Titled -1986- (Cassette, Self-Released), Netherlands

I figured that we're not going to end this month without some heavier hitting tunes for your living room/bedroom dancefloor (the only one that matters anyway). The Final Curtain is a project I have no information about, nor does the cassette reveal anything else than a plastic inlay displaying an abstract drawing with strange symbols or initials. It's a super obscurity from the Dutch home-taping era that only gives us a title and a year of release on the outer cassette case.

The fragile tape contains two great synth-wave tracks belonging to that outer space alien dancefloor realm where twinkling stars far above us prove us there must be more than this... An analog electronic sound shared by a few other Dutch acts from those days like Ende Shneafliet or No Honey From These. Perhaps some of these forces also forecasted the Dutch electro sound that would arise many years later through labels like Bunker or Viewlexx.

More lost minimal synth melancholia from the electric 80's cradle.

From the Collection Allard Pierson/NPI

Get The Final Curtain HERE

Roy G. Biv - Prince Spaghetti Day -1985- (Cassette, Self-Released), Netherlands

Roy G. Biv (Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo Violet) was an Amsterdam based home-taping project and sound & color improvisation band created by Dutch musician and visual artist Robin Deirkauf in collaboration with Edward Vunderink (guitars, voice) and Frans Evers (keyboards).

The band played hours of psychedelic jam sessions in which repetitive guitar riffs, cosmic electronics and post-punk experimentation were brough together. Roy G. Biv released around 10 different cassette albums during the 80's. The early work by the band can be placed in a more cosmic electronic Krautrock tradition, while the later albums blend a psychedelic sound with different music influences from the 80's. A variety of spectral color schemes and color symbolism were an important dimension of the band. Visual art and conceptual ideas around colors were used and developed for live concerts and for the releases. Conceptually it reminds me of the direction Sonic Boom took with his band Spectrum after the Spacemen 3 period. You can read more about Roy G. Biv in a previous blogpost.

 

Prince Spaghetti Day (named after an American spaghetti commercial) is a later release by Roy G. Biv from 1985. It's less dreamy and overall more rhythm driven. Yet another nice album of psychedelic jams mediated through a home-taping minimal synth sound, reminiscent of bands like 39 Clocks or Circles.

RIP Robin Deirkauf 1946-2019

From the Collection Allard Pierson/NPI

Get it HERE

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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The Clone - Psycho Delicts -198X- (Self-Released, Cassette), Germany

Here is another obscure tape by the blog's favorite absurdist and disruptive Kassettentäter recidivists Die Gefährliche Klons (The Dangerous Clones). This particular recording comes from an obscure source of overdubbed NDW cassettes I got hold of a long time ago. The Gefärhliche Klons were formed in the city of Marburg during the late 70's by the core duo of Uwe Linke and Exo Neutrino. They had many different Clone disguises and started to do their own music experiments inspired by Der Plan blending primitive electronic sounds with demented acoustic tunes and melodies while also using toys and other lost and found non-instruments.

Even though this material was copied from its original source during the 80's and consequently somewhat less high in audio fidelity without any cover artwork, chances are slim that an original of this will actually surface, so I decided to share this anyway. Moreover, Psycho Delicts by "The Clone" might be one of the most balanced, intricate and serious music efforts I've heard by the Klons so far. It's as if finally a German Krimi series goes absurdist Neue Deutsche Welle and the special police unit is trying to catch a mysterious mob of dangerous clowns equiped with cassette decks and casio keyboards who are roaming the music underground and leaving an idiotic soundtrack as their only trace. Obviously undermining the success story of the police. Quite reminiscent of the neurotic and paranoid subversive world of The Cop Killers: a conceptual Italian Sci-Fi fueled anti-authoritarian and fugitive home-taping project that was created a.o. by mail-artist Vittore Baroni in the early 80's.

The short Psycho Delicts cassette doesn't really like to compromise, yet it's unquestionably humorous while containing some real musical depth. Conceptually indeed similar to some of the creations by The Residents, Der Plan or even Blacklight Braille.

"Was tu tust kann nur zur Selbstzerstörung führen."

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Various Artists - Musicworks 46 -1990- (Cassette, Musicworks), Canada

Here we have a compilation cassette that was released by Canadian magazine Musicworks that focuses on contemporary avant-garde music since the late 70's and is still active to this day. They released dozens of cassettes that accompanied the magazine thoughout the decades.

Musicworks 46 starts with a piece of synthesizer played live by Henry Kucharzyk. The piece is composed by pioneering Canadian female electronic music composer Ann Southam. Since the early 70's she has been involved with electro-acoustic composition in combination with dance and choreography. Her album Sky Sails from 1973 which she made in collaboration with Seán Ó Huigín is a highly sought after record of electronic composition and modern composed collage. It's regarded as one of the more important recordings of Canadian experimental electronic music of the 70's.

The second part of the A-side continues with installation soundworks that were given the name "Very Nervous System". It's a multimedia installation focusing on bodily movements and sound recorded by Canadian artist David Rokeby. There is a sense of artificial interpretation of organic and natural sounds. Those themes are explored in pieces as Waterworks or Gamelaraga. That conceptual sonic exploration of pseudo-natural themes is also used by Fast Forward, a tribal rhythmic project by the American percussionist Paul Wilson, who in this case mostly uses a Trinidadian steel drum in different rhythmic manners.

The compilation ends with a contemporary composed jazz piece composed by Canadian violinist Malcolm Goldstein dedicated to the South African township of Soweto. The piece titled Soweto Stomp was written in 1985 to commemorate the Soweto uprising in 1976 and is dedicated to the black people of South Africa in their struggle for freedom and equality.

Kindly donated by Orpheu The Wizard

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Amalgam - 1978-1981 -1991- (Cassette, Black Point), Czech Republic

Amalgam 1978-1981 features the recordings of a series of concerts of this project led by the Czech drummer and percussionist Vlastimil Marek, along with a variety of guests that range from renowned Czech progressive rock musicians and ethnomusicologists active in the country’s underground scene to a rare participation at that time of an international guest like Mohan Lal.

The recording on the A-side of the tape stems from Amalgam’s participation at the Prague Jazz Days festival held at the Lucerna concert hall on the 19th may 1978. The occasion brought together Marek’s orientally inclined percussive music with the members of the progressive rock band Švehlík, which included Pavel Richter, Luboš Fidler and Alexandr Hajdovský along with the participation of the Indian tabla player Mohan Lal, one of the first foreign guests to play the festival. This first part depicts the inclination towards non-western musical traditions, in this case by Marek and its fusion with avant-garde rock bands like Švehlík, a style at that time already popularized in "the West" by musicians like John McLaughlin or bands like Tri Atma and Embryo for example. In a sense, such music is representative of a legacy of occidental musicians prone to experiment with oriental modes and percussion in order to escape from the constraining aspects of western music towards free and varied forms of music incorporating a clear tendency towards improvisation.

The first half of the B-side was recorded at the sports hall Na Folimance in Prague a year later featuring Czech music-ethnologist and multi-instrumentalist Jiří Mazánekon on acoustic guitar and voice, and Milan Valenta on the violin. The second half was recorded at Baráčnická Rychta also in Prague and the liner notes only name Vlastimil Marek’s use of tapes and percussion along the participation of a series of unknown guests.

While working on his solo percussion projects, Marek has also played with well known rock in opposition bands like MCH Band, Švehlík and Extempore, all of which have included Pavel Richter as a member. In this sense we may appreciate the diverse network of musicians of different genres which participated in the country’s underground scene, resulting in the creation of a fertile terrain for the development of non-conventional approaches towards a free music conception despite the ungoing political repression of the country at that time.

The first side of this tape was released as the second half of the CD Švehlík & Amalgam – Lucerna 19. Května 1978 in 2017 by Galén, a book publisher and record label from Prague.

 By Juan Vacas - RNR 

Get it HERE