Various Artists ‎– "Fire On Boat" (Terse Tapes ‎– TRS006c) 1980

A C90 compilations from Terse Tapes (ran by Tom Ellard of Severed Heads) featuring UK DIY bands/Artists from the midlands compiled with Mark from....poor lad....Coventry.

This is why we find bands from Northampton,Nuneaton, Coventry and beyond on an Australian cassette label.

There are brief, but very worthwhile forays into the north via Liverpool with the Legendary Phillip Johnson,and Edinburgh with Josef K frontman Paul Haig,doing a very raw version of Josef K tune 'Pictures'.Not forgetting south Humbersiders,and DIY foundation stone layers, Instant Automatons, and chums, Alien Brains!

Not to mention some pre-fame Eyeless In Gaza stuff.

We also have something from DIY legend Gary Ramon in his WeR7 incarnation, and fellow Color Tapes stablemates 'Lives Of Angels',appearing here as the Body Electric.

Its ALL enrobed in that classic DIY small room ambiance,lashings of  fuzz and hiss; played on the cheapest equipment possible.

A classic compilation on a classic DIY Label.


Tracklisting:

A1 –Rota Rhythms - The Age Of The Fun Cassette
A2 –PR5 - Private Armies
A3 –Dave Carson - Crashing And Gasping
A4 –Paul Haig - Pictures
A5 –Philip Johnson - Nothing
A6 –Philip Johnson - Holiday Train
A7 –Paul Reekie - Drugs At School
A8 –A.D.H. - Ruins/Drive
A9 –Ron Crowcroft Lock/Unlock
A10 –WeR7 - Disquiet Music 2
A11 –The Ordinary - Fight The Good Fight 

B1 –Religious Overdose - 25 Minutes
B2 –Body Electric - Red Suit
B3 –Martyn Bates - Engine Failing
B4 –Douglas Barrie & Stuart Wright - March
B5 –Kevin Harrison - The Boy Was Dead (Ambulance Song)
B6 –Alien Brains - 2 Minutes Of Alien Brains
B7 –The Instant Automatons - Brains Under Glass
B8 –Eyeless In Gaza - By Proxy
B9 –Disintegrators - Disintegration (Excerpt)
B10 –Tony Clough - Isolation 1
B11 –Excitement Pathetix - Fun Cassette

DOWNLOAD the fire off boat HERE!

Peter Becker ‎– " Ambivalent Scale / Tape Recordings 1979 - 1981" (Vinyl-on-demand ‎– VOD115.3) 2013

Peter Becker, one half of Eyeless In Gaza, released a couple of minimal synth pop cassettes around 1980 on his Ambivalent Scale recordings label. Kindly gathered together for this compilation on our mate and yours' label,Vinyl on Demand......the on demand bit meaning...'Are you Loaded?'.....loaded being Cash, not off yer tits on drugs.
Its classically wobbly,sequencer-free, analogue synth-pop from the peak of the UK DIY era.
He would go on to 'greater' things with Eyeless In Gaza,but this is that duo's understated equal

Tracklist:

A1 Drum Avant 7 2:00
A2 Music For Playgrounds 2:10
A3 Faces In The Dark 1:28
A4 Eyes Blink (Disco Mix) 2:33
A5 Music For The Italian Tourist Board 1:57
A6 Forch Funk 3:18
A7 Veil (PB Version) 1:58
A8 Eyes Blink (Version) 2:16
A9 Spider Noise / Ant Noise 2:28
A10 By Train To The Coast 1:28
A11 Arabesque 1:03
B1 Ukrainian Stained Glass 1:23
B2 Voyage Across 2:20
B3 We Can’t Break The Spell 2:19
B4 Aborigine Spirit Dance 2:29
B5 Loneliness Disco 2:28
B6 Ukrainian Church 1:00
B7 Winter Glide 3:21
B8 Transatlantic Flight 4:17
B9 Distance 2:33

DOWNLOAD on an ambivalent scale HERE!

Eyeless In Gaza ‎– "Mythic Language" (Ambivalent Scale Recordings ‎– ASR 050) 2014

I know what you're all thinking......Who is Megan Markle wearing today?.....for those who don't know who Megan Markle is, 1/ - I envy you; and 2/- She's the idiot who's marrying Prince Harry (I give it twenty years of a slow slide into another royal divorce).
Yes I was unfortunate enough to sit down to eat my sandwich and watch a bit of TV when I was confronted by the wall-to-wall coverage of the Sycophantic Circus that is thee Royal wedding......watch out for some dodgy policy announcements from the government hidden behind the smoke screen of designer babble and petty celebrity cameo's.
I scrambled for my royal approved Douche-Bag to deport my sandwich into as, between wretches, the commentators brown nosed the sickening smattering of desperate celebrities mingling in amongst the 'Elite'.This just about summed up the incandescent irrelevance of this laughable Illuminati party.
I noticed some black guests strolling up towards Windsor castle past some policemen who would normally have stopped them and planted something illegal on the male ones......but, No, not today.We're told we're all equal now because Megan's got a black mummy.
It doesn't end there, because apart from James fucking Blunt,Idris Elba(some actor bloke) was spotted hob-nobbing with the hoi polloi, and future president of the useless.S.of A, Oprah Winfry is videoed at length, not because she is black, but because she's an invited guest?????; chit chatting in the chapel with Earl Spencer......she's made it into the white elite at last?!
No doubt that Gil Scott Heron would call all these brothers and sisters 'Uncle Toms',and they are......I may be sounding like the latest trendy racial term, 'White Gammon', but white people need an 'Uncle Tom' slur equivalent for the token underclass representatives that have been ordered to attend so we forget about the wealth that these royal bloodsuckers have stolen in the past.Give us our castles and gold back.Windsor castle has plenty of spare rooms for homeless people,and I guess the Windsors/Saxe-Coburgs, have been exempted from the infamous 'Spare Room Tax' that has plunged the underclass deeper into debt slavery. 
Having dissed the Royals somewhat,it's worth mentioning that Prince Harry has,luckily for him, very little 'Royal Blood', as his father was obviously James Hewitt.Genetically he is more, or, less one of 'Us', which explains why he seem relatively 'normal'.

James Hewitt              Harry Saxe-Coburg

A good day to bury some bad news behind the even worse reality of this despicable privileged pantomime.......'They're Behind You'  
I wager they're even watching this debacle in Gaza.....which reminds me what this post was originally about......Eyeless In Gaza.....

Eyeless In Gaza recorded dustbins full of stuff,and it all seems to have been of a similarly high quality. So naturally, in these days of releasing every fart a band made in or out of the recording studio, here's the obligatory studio out-takes, demo's and live album released 30 years after the fact. Its a rather splendid document of a very fine and prolific duo.The savage guitar attack on the live disc being particularly impressive.Up there for shear speed with the guitarists from The Wedding Present and the Nightingales. 
(Yeah I know there was a third ,and irrelevant disc of solo Martyn Bates in the '90's',but who wants to be reminded of their 90's-selves?......i don't, thank you very much!...so i've only uploaded the good stuff,cheap/free storage space is precious.....there's an extras disc as well,but its not too essential)

Tracklist:

Disc #1 : Egg Box Mask (Eyeless In Gaza : Studio Recordings 1980-1983)

1-1 –All Echo
1-2 –Lines Of Flame
1-3 –You, So Open
1-4 –The Sun-Like-Gold
1-5 –Mythic Language
1-6 –Alms Houses
1-7 –Old Hours, Slow Daybreak
1-8 –Three Nights Running
1-9 –See She Sells, On The Seashore, Shells
1-10 –We Shade Our Eyes
1-11 –Quiet Lustre
1-12 –Prayerbook To The Quiet
1-13 –Second Music
1-14 –See The Dark Pools Flash
1-15 –The Raindreaming Ship
1-16 –Songs Of Coming Winter
1-17 –Autumn Mixes Its Colours
1-18 –Song Of A Man Who Has Come Through

Disc #2 : Fixation (Eyeless In Gaza : Live Recordings 1980-1982)

2-1 –In Flux
2-2 –Blue Distance
2-3 –Two Years On
2-4 –Lines Of Flame
2-5 –Sound Track
2-6 –The Skeletal Framework
2-7 –Struck Like Jacob Marley
2-8 –Darker Portraits
2-9 –Kiss Syntax
2-10 –Pale Hands I Loved So Well
2-11 –November, Silver & Dark
2-12 –Forward Steps
2-13 –Primary Colour
2-14 –Palms
2-15 –Urge (The Favourite Game)

DOWNLOAD the myth HERE!

Eyeless In Gaza ‎– "Caught In Flux" (Cherry Red ‎– bred 18 + 12 bred 18) 1981

I didn't rush out in my school lunch break and buy Eyeless in Gaza'a second album of 1981,unlike I did with the first album.
There was far too much going on musically back then,and they had started to repeat themselves as early as 1980,then continued to do so.This album is a testament to that.
Basically its 'Photographs as Memories' 2, but without the hits.
However, listening to it now , compared to the incredibly terrible pop the kids listen to today this is Mozart. Full of the intelligence, energy and passion that the millennial generation seems to have none of......even when they're playing on their X-Box or Playstation. Obsessed by trivia in an insular world of 'Tech', and disposable triple albums for twerking about breaking up with boyfriends.
Such was the small demand for Eyeless In Gaza products, Cherry Red included a free 12" EP.But things moved fast in those days and they got lost in the milieu......funny how time seems to have slowed down, or is it because our own personal perceptions have sped up?...but art in general seems to have become stuck.
Musically 'Grime' is spoken of as the latest thing, but wasn't that around at the turn of the millenium(?), Dizzy Rascal and all that? That's not excluding the fact that its really just 'Hip-Hop',(which has been around since Eyeless In Gaza's Caught In Flux!) with a silly name featuring 40 year old rappers talking in that very silly accent where 'Th' become 'Phfff' ......I Phffink,Phffank God, therephorr I yam.....Nah,I don't Phffink so mate!
Someone was going on about how 'Rap' began in Africa last week.....frankly who gives a flying fuck where it was invented,the sad thing is that it can't be uninvented in Africa!......dunno how I got here but, it was fun.

Tracklist:

The Eyes Of Beautiful Losers

A1 The Eyes Of Beautiful Losers 5:25
A2 Still Air 3:38
B1 Out From The Day-To-Day 3:00
B2 True Colour 4:17
B3 Keynote Inertia 2:30

Caught In Flux

C1 Sixth Sense 3:30
C2 Point You 2:27
C3 Voice From The Tracks 4:00
C4 Scale Amiss 3:00
C5 The Decoration 2:45
C6 Continual 2:15
D1 Soul On Thin Ice 2:50
D2 Rose Petal Knot 2:10
D3 Skeletal Framework 3:30
D4 See Red 2:35
D5 Half Light 3:15
D6 Every Which Way 5:01

DOWNLOAD in flux HERE!

Eyeless In Gaza ‎– "Photographs As Memories" (Cherry Red ‎– BRED 13) 1981

What a great album?
I vividly remember spending my £3.99 one school lunchtime on this after reading a Review in Sounds. I thought it was by Dave McCollough,but no, it was Des Moines, the compiler of 'Hicks From The Sticks".....and guess what...here it is:

FUTURA OPTIMA
by DES MOINES (Sounds, February 14, 1981)

"This record celebrates the first anniversary of Nuneaton duo Eyeless In Gaza and simultaneously plugs another hole in the Coventry Nuneaton jigsaw already graced by the Reluctant Stereotypes, The Urge and semi-cult figures Pete Bosworth and Kevin Harrison.
Recorded and mixed very cheaply in 24 hours last July, the disc has a decidedly ‘live’ feel to it, a feel which guarantees plenty of atmosphere while taking its toll in terms of bum notes, fluffed timing (cock an ear to Bates beserkly-strummed guitar on ‘Knives Replace Air’) and recurrent instrumental indecisiveness. But that’s the price you pay for being committed to first takes and minimal overdubbing usually only one synthesiser overdub per track. The entire trip is excruciatingly intense, speculative and aggressive, and almost totally devoid of discernible influences.
American jazz-funk, Big Youth and Robert Wyatt are all professed heroes of Becker and Bates, but you hear as little of them as you do of anyone except Eyeless throughout this stupendously self-assured long-playing record.
There are a lot of flaws. Former R Stereotypes song-smith Bates has an extremely challenging voice but doesn’t vary it half as much as he needs to, and sometimes affects it so contrivedly it takes the form of unlistenable asinine rantings or else projects like an unsuccessful Louis Armstrong impression.
Usually, though, it’s just so for futurism par excellence. ‘From A to B’, ‘Speech Rapid Fire’ and ‘No Noise’ are three representations of how Becker (£200 Wasp synthesiser, voice, percussion, violin, stylophone, ‘treated tapes’) and Bates (voice, electric guitar, plastic organ, soprano sax) at full flow achieve their thoroughly magic melodies. Their formula isn’t easy to unravel. Becker’s uncanny flair for compelling succinct synthesiser hook lines is the conspicuous characteristic, but Bates’ imperiously evocative vocal is a factor just as crucial.
‘John of Patmos’, with a vocal line superficially reminiscent of ‘White Man In Hammersmith Palais’ and featuring Bates’ cliché crazy sax, is one that botches its pretension to ‘avoid entropy’, disintegrating into time-wasting chaos and representing Eyeless at their worst. ‘In Your Painting’ is similar rubbish, the musical equivalent of cycling over a canvas full of oil paints and calling the result ‘art’. Listen out for both of them nonetheless we rolled about when we heard them, they’re so ridiculous. They made us feel so conservative!
Sad that ‘Kodak Ghosts Run Amok’, the indie EP of ’80, didn’t join the other ‘Photographs As Memories’, a victim of the frequently misguided ‘no duplication-of-material’ stance favoured by your average left-field combo. But the highspots of the album are truly staggering, and it’ll be interesting to witness the band break cover from the false security of policy statements (‘It’s important to us that our music intuitive … we make music from pure feeling as opposed to analytical and methodical considerations‘ etc etc) get up there on a podium, take risks and sing for their suppers. Sing, in fact, lyrics like ‘Scratch at peeling veneer, worn unpolished. Carve more lines and refuse to acknowledge Praise up your figure. The Indian giver. As if it’s seven years bad luck just to look in the mirror’. (‘Seven Years ’)."

Yeah, I'll concur with that, saves me writing anything much anyway.

Just that it sounds better today than when i first played it.

Its hard to believe Martyn Bates was in the truly awful ska bandwagon missers,The Reluctant Stereotypes, with the truly awful future MTV 'VJ',Paul King of 'King';that truly awful group from Coventry who had a couple of truly awful hits in about 1985,and whose main contribution to fashion were truly awful mullets and doc martens sprayed with paint.....Truly Awful!

Tracklist:

A1 Seven Years
A2 Fixation
A3 Looking Daggers
A4 From A. To B.
A5 Clear Cut Apparently
A6 Speech Rapid Fire
A7 John Of Patmos
B1 Knives Replace Air
B2 Faceless
B3 In Your Painting
B4 A Keepsake
B5 Whitewash
B6 No Noise

DOWNLOAD these digital files as memories HERE!

Eyeless In Gaza ‎– "Others" (Cherry Red ‎– Cherry 31) 1981

Another Eyeless In Gaza EP from 1981 that contains interchangeable tracks that could fit on any of their early records,and could even sit comfortably in with the out-takes.Although these tracks could easily have been out-takes from the "Photographs As Memories" LP (up next)

Tracklist:

A Others 2:52
B1 Jane Dancing 1:02
B2 Ever Present 1:53
B3 Avenue With Trees 3:21

DOWNLOAD like the others HERE!

Eyeless In Gaza ‎– "Invisibility" (Cherry Red ‎– Cherry 20) 1981

Eyeless's big indie label debut from 1981. 
Not really a singles band as you could pick nearly any track to be a single as they all seem to be of the same standard, and not exactly catchy.
If minimalist electronic punky introverted extrovert soul is your bag down the disco then this is the duo for you.

Tracklist:

A Invisibility 2:39
B1 Three Kittens 4:43
B2 Plague Of Years 1:38

DOWNLOAD invisibly HERE!

Eyeless In Gaza ‎– Kodak Ghosts Run Amok (Ambivalent Scale Recordings ‎– ASR 002) 1980

Eyeless In Gaza ,the kings of the Nuneaton sound, got their single out well before Bron Area(probably had more money?),and sounded immediately more sophisticated and capable than their local rivals. They seemed to come out of the womb fully formed,and unleashed a torrent of the highest quality,and emotionally charged minimal post punk avant-soul.Three EP's and two albums within the space of a year!?
This one is their debut vinyl on their own DIY label Ambivalent Scale from 1980, and displays a repeated interest in photography as a psychological catalyst for rebirth,or time travel. 

Tracklist:

A Kodak Ghosts Run Amok
B1 China Blue Vision
B2 The Feelings Mutual

DOWNLOAD and run amok HERE!

Various Artists - "The Wonderful World Of Glass(volume One)" (Glass Records ‎– GLASS 010) 1981

The primary reason for including a Glass records compilation on this site,is the inclusion of another lost Lemon Kittens track. The less strange,but beaty, “What the Cat Brought In”; not for completists only.

What else is on this then, you ask.......or ,more likely, probably not?

Nuneaton's Eyeless In Gaza soundalikes,Bron Area are on here, and even the two halves of yer actual, Nuneaton's own, Eyeless In Gaza dip into their vast reservoir of tracks for us.

Shit, I didn't see the Legendary Pink Dots! I usually slag these geezers off, but I'm fucked off writing about a band I don't particularly like. I hear nothing here to change my entrenched position.

Great tracks by, it's the Nuneaton connection again, Kevin Harrison. Not from Nuneaton are Schleimer K, Joy Div copyist lightweights English Subtitles, and probably many more?

I suppose we may get some sulking Nirvana bores salivating over the Marine Girls track, as Cobain expressed a liking for the twee indie act before blowing his brains out. Sad.....no not the suicide.....the Nirvana nerds!

Tracklist:

A1 Schleimer K - She's Gone

A2 Bron Area - You Would Be Amazed

A3 Ciaran Harte - Johnny Doesn't Need Much

A4 Legendary Pink Dots - The Defeated

A5 Marine Girls - Flying Over Russia

A6 Peter Becker - During Half Sleep

A7 Kevin Harrison - Blinded By Hypnotism

A8 Lemon Kittens - What The Cat Brought In

B1 Where's Lisse? - Red Light

B2 Tonix - The Sex Junk

B3 English Subtitles - Water

B4 Martyn Bates - Nascent Fragrance Of Skin

B5 3 Way Dance - Praise The Flames

B6 No More - Hypnotised

B7 Clinical Noise - Venus Comes

B8 Religious Overdose - Blow The Back Off It

B9 Richard Formby - Your Name You're Strange

DOWNLOAD into your own wonderful world HERE!