Henry Cow – "A Cow Cabinet Of Curiosities" (ReR Megacorp – HC1000) 2009

All you lot already have all the Henry Cow albums right?...bit of a shit band name really innit?

Never liked portrayals of socks either.

Just the name 'enry cow invokes within me the whiff of patchouli oil joss sticks and ethnic art objects;not because 'Enry were a bunch of smelly hippies,quite the opposite...almost.....the basement shop that i first encountered album sleeves with unpleasant reimaginings of socks aboard was situated underneath the most unashamedly Hippie apothecary in post-punk Leicester....the "Very Bazaar"...geddit?....Underneath the whiffy smokey atmosphere of street level Very Bazaar,lay the only place in Leicester you could buy Whitehouse records,Recommended Records, Half Japanese, reggae Dub 10 inchers,The Residents  ,and Henry Cow!?.... When i got my first Dole Giro, to the value of 32 quid...I cashed it in, got on my Bike and went to the subterranean Very Bazaar record shop,with its matt black painted brick decor and homemade record racks.(the upstairs bit still exists!?)A bit as i imagine a gift shop run by Crass would have looked. The record bit was ran by an amiable mustachioed chap called Steve,and Lydon's mate ,Jock MacDonald's brother Martin,who loved Lynard Skynard previously, before he encountered johnny Rotten in the Pub next door to the shop (the Globe),then suddenly he became a Punk Rocker overnight.The record shop also became a one room Bollock Brothers tribute ,as brother Jock was a member.Last i heard of Martin he was wanted in Greece for drug offences,and was running away to hideout in Ireland.

Anyway, I digress;on giro(my benefits cheque) day,I came away with, the Cravats In Toytown, This Heat's Deceit, Metabolist "Hansten Klork","Whitehouse's Dedicated to Peter Kurten in yellow vinyl, and Henry Cow's "In Praise Of Learning". I think there may have been a Pink Military 12inch in there too.....ah blood and lipstick.And i still had two quid left for a lemon split bun and an ice cream soda,how punk rock is that(?) from Brucciani's....RIP!

So,as you lot have already got everything by 'Enry, here's that limited edition bonus disc from the 50th anniversary box set thingy, which you've already got of course. If you haven't i might upload the box set with an iTunes style bit rate of 192k,'cus it's massive and i'm running out of storage space.

Here's a 1972 style review of the album to finish:

"Track one sounds like Soft Machine,but the rest doesn't."

Notes:

Tracks 1 & 2: recorded in our rehearsal place probably in 1972
Tracks 3, 4, 5 & 6: extracted from a forgotten tape I gave to Steve Feigenbaum in 1978. The original recordings were presumably made on cassettes run from the mixing desk.
Track 7: out-take from "In Praise Of Learning" mixed by Tim Hodgkinson at Cold Storage in 1984.
Tracks 8, 9 & 10: recorded at a public concert for NDR Jazz Workshop, Hamburg on 26th March, 1976
Track 11: recorded at a public concert at the Sendesaal, Studio F, Radio Bremen, on 22nd of March, 1978, for New Jazz Live.
Track 12: extract from an Unrest out-take mixed by Tim Hodgkinson at Cold Storage in 1984.

Tracklist:

1 Pre Virgin Demo 1 3:55
2 Pre Virgin Demo 2 1:02
3 Unidentified Improvisation 1 1:30
4 Unidentified Improvisation 2 5:37
5 Unidentified Late Composition 2:04
6 Exploded Amygdala / Teen Introduction 3:37
7 Lovers Of Gold 6:29
8 Hamburg 6 5:33
9 Ruins Extract 8:24
10 Hamburg 7 9:44
11 Half The Sky 5:03
12 Extract From The Glove 2:19

DOWNLOAD and hear this crazy moozic straight from the cow's mouth HERE!

Univers Zero – "Univers Zéro" (Eric Faes – EF 1313) 1977

Another tenuous Rock In Opposition moment beckons:

Never one to stoop to revealing the bleeding obvious, my hand has been forced to introduce everyone to the band they've always known about....yep...It's Univers Zero....but have you listened to them all the way to the end of side B? If you have then you're either pretentious or narcissistic loner...luckily i'm both,and i've listened to this and the 2nd album all the way through,and felt like an emptied bowel afterwards. 

They're kinda an Electric Light Orchestra for failed music students who wish they were in a Doom Metal band....which apart from Black Sabbath,didn't exist until the late 80's.

When a bunch of angry young doom-mongers find each other in the Conservatoire during lunch hour, and one, if not more, toys with the idea of merging Stravinsky with Czechoslovakian folk and.....the PROG word.Some unaccredited wag you wouldn't want to be in the same town as said this...."Like Sorabji's symphonies gone wrong"(I bet he's a barrel of Laughs)....for fucks sake, does anyone know who Sorabji was/is...please don't answer that, I can google too,but prefer not.

Don't you just love it when some bright spark thinks a progressive idea is to merge lots of different genres and hopefully come up with something 'new'? So unadmirably eclectic isn't it? 

Genre-wise they managed it, and no mention of Peter Gabriel or David Byrne in earshot..."Chamber Rock" some idiot called it.....not much rocking here though, it's all a bit Jive Bunny plays Bartok with Bill Bruford on drums instead of a TR909. When someone whips out an Oboe or a Basson, you know you're in trouble, they're either showing off or desperate.

Of course I'm being willfully facetious here ,that's the role of this character i have reinvented myself as innit?

This record festers on your turntable like a portal into the dark European soul that us anglo-saxons are so distrustful of...the sound of Putin's mind. It's almost that frightening.

This was Chamber Rock's "Smell The Glove" moment, a black cover that you could see yourself reflected in both sides. Human kind's black heart as released in the Punk Rock breakthrough year of 1977.....only in Belgium would....could, this happen. They would have been arrested in most Iron Curtain countries for spreading fake news about the human soul, or lack thereof on planet Earth in 1977. And the anglo-american rock fraternity just pointed and laughed.

Like that other Oboe brandishing 'rock' group , Roxy Music, they inadvisedly reformed after splitting up for a decade.Losing the magic as did Roxy,slideing down the alippery slope in Armani suits and white tuxedo's as if in a Glam Rock "Jeux Sans Frontiers"*....Somehow I'd quite like to see Univers Zero performing in White Tuxedo's on "It's a Knockout".(Only on this blog can you see references to 'Its a Knockout*,Stravinsky and Sorabji on the same page).Now, that's Irony?In some ways British TV could effortlessly churn out endless amounts of surreal TV art in the 1970's,that was probably even weirder than Univers Zero could ever hope for.....who needs Salvador Dali when you have convicted Pedophile Stuart Hall ably assisted by Eddie "it's an Up and Under" Waring in Ely 1973? (in Syd Barratt Country)

There was an equally sour listening experience awaiting in the second album.....party music this ain't,unless you're a contemporary dancer?...Which is the only form of Prog Comedy that i can really laugh at! Who says these crazy Belgians take themselves too seriously?...everyone.

PS..this was later called "1313",which was the catalog number, to avoid any confusion.....but didn't Lydia Lunch have an album called that too?......oooh i dunno, everything's been done innit? At least twice in these over-exposed days has it not?

* kind of an early version of the European Union...if it stayed like this there would have been no Brexit.

Tracklist:

1.Ronde 14:45
2.Carabosse 3:40
3.Docteur Petiot 7:25
4.Malaise 7:42
5.Complainte 3:18

DOWNLOAD to feel down HERE!

Samla Mammas Manna - "Måltid" (Silence – SRS 4621) 1973

In a glaring attempt to pick something not Obvious from the groups who performed at the genre defining original Rock In Opposition Featival back in yee olde days of 1978. I give you a Swedish band who ,(A), aren't Abba, (B) contain no future ABBA collaborators or Members, and thirdly, (C), are certainly NOT Swedish Punk,or on a Killed by death compilation. All this blatant non-alignment with Swedish musical cliché,without even mentioning IKEA or Volvo, suggests a record of great promise.

As it turns out ,they are basically Canterbury Prog emulators with some rather annoying vocal bits that suggest a.....sharp intake of breath!.....sense of humour!? Prog Humour is never something to boast about,and is even more frown defining than even Psychedelic Humour. Comedy music is seldom recommended,99% of which ends in disaster and polite embarrassed applause. Especially if you're making serious music,and add a spot of  funny stuff to show that you don't take yourselves seriously,when you most obviously do.

I spotted this cover from afar,and thought it was a unhalfbricking style photograph of a pair of elderly types having a Gravelax sandwich....disappointingly it turns out to be a semi-photorealist painting,that, again may suggest prog humour!?

I'll tell you what definitely is NOT funny about this record,is that god-awful high-pitched, falsetto i think they call it, vocalizing.

You know that feeling you get when you trip over a crack in the paving,or are passed by an over revving Moped in first gear; that you momentarily wanna kill some fucker!?....that's how i feel when these Swedes from Canterbury make their silly hi-pitched noises.

Other than that it's okay.

It would be five years before the inauguration of Rock In Opppostion,so maybe they sacked off the vocals by 1978?

I've never been brave enough to try and find out.

I understand that the Turkish objections to Sweden joining NATO were based around having heard this record. Now NATO are considering using it to counteract all that state approved prog on the old Soviet official record label that Putin has been secretly hoarding alongside the Novichok;.. Melodija(its spelt several different ways smartarses!).

Tracklisting:

1 Dundrets Fröjder 10:43
2 Oförutsedd Förlossning 3:10
3 Den Återupplivade Låten 5:53
4 Folkvisa I Morse 2:07
5 Syster System 2:27
6 Tärningen 3:33
7 Svackorpoängen 3:11
8 Minareten 8:21
9 Værelseds Tilbud 2:26
10 Minareten II 4:40
11 Circus Apparatha 6:02
12 Probably The Probably 3:54

DOWNLOAD some flatpack canterbury prog via sweden HERE!

Etron Fou Leloublan – "Les Poumons Gonflés" (Turbo Music S.A. – TMSA 3301) 1982

Okay, it had to happen,the french drummer bloke who was in Les Batteries,Guigou Chenevier, gained his fame from playing les batteries in the Rock In Opposition monsters, Etron Fou Leloublan......rolls off the tongue doesn't it?

Rock In opposition,or RIO, is really a more marketable title for Prog Rock of the more Avant variety,which became yet another category after Henry Cow's original RIO festival during those crazy punky rock years of 1978 upwards.So an obvious Punky influence was absorbed into these Avant-proggers repertoire.Shorter,opinionated and angrier versions of the progressive type. Quite a few of those post-punk chaps would have fitted in quite well methinks,but the clothes were bad,so they kept away.

Weird time signatures, played by a drummer sight reading music from a lectern positioned visibly by the Hi-Hat to show the dangerously hippified audience that 'we ain't just making this up y'know!'

Etron Fou Leloublan do all this stuff,ticking all the RIO boxes,but bare in mind that these groovy garcons are indeed French, so you should expect some of that 'orrible screechy shouting that their pallets tend to enunciate from time to time through no fault of their own.I blame the parents....who were probably Artists and as a consequence of this delusion,also bastards.

Anyway I chose this album, because it has a song called Nicolas on it, which is my real world given name,and having spent a week in a French hospital once with a collapsed lung,"Les Poumons Gonflés"(the inflated lungs) has a special ring to it.

 

Tracklisting:

1.Nicolas 4:06
2.Mimi 2:58
3.Exposition Universelle 1:41

4.Nicole 5:42
5.La Musique 3:05
6.Christine 6:46
7.Those Distant Waters 3:24
8.Upsalla 2:05
9.Io Prefero 4:29
10.Pas L'sou 3:11

DOWNLOAD without opposition HERE!

Les Batteries – "Noisy Champs" (AYAA – DT 0486) 1986

This Heat's influence,or,connections with the French underground seems to be somewhat larger then expected,as here we find The Heats erstwhile drummer and singer, Mr Charles Hayward, hooking up with another couple of  other drummer boys,....namely French 'rock in opposition' bloke Guigou Chenevier, and some geezer called Rick Brown.....yes THEE Rick Brown.......nah! I haven't heard of him either! But Rick probably hasn't heard of us too so we're quits!?

Three Drummers Drumming,as it doesn't say in the famed Christmas carol, but three,yes,THREE,drummers does indeed apply here! Can you imagine the creative arguments in a band with three drummers? As Gary Glitter and Adam Ant can testify, two drummers max in a band, or there's gonna be trouble. In fact it was Drummer trouble that ended Adam and The Ants and burdened the world with Adam's much maligned Solo career. With Glitter, the obvious problem was,funnily enough, actually Glitter himself(a fine example of a singer that hangs out with musicians).

Drummers are famously the guys who do hang around with musicians.The guys who die mysteriously,choke 'ON' vomit,aren't needed outside of touring, and are forever trying to impose their daft ideas on the rest of the group; like John Bonham's 'Moby Dick', or Rat Scabies' "Stab yor Back", as if trying,accidentally of course, to move that hilarious joke well into the realms of observational comedy.

Y'see, Drummers actually do think they are musicians,and like the stupid son of the family, are always trying to make the audience look at them and see what they're doing.This usually involves hitting the drums as loud as possible,and taking copious amounts of drugs....as in, more than you....look maw I'm Dancin' !

However much the average drummer harbors sparkling  thoughts of their own genius within their considerable ego's ;one has to concede that all this drummer hate certainly does NOT apply to the great Charles Haywood, or his vocal sound-a-like Bobby Wyatt,who are indeed the granddaddies of the Rock In Opposition fad of the late seventies, otherwise known as Prog Rock under any other name.

So, what we expect are three drummers busting their balls trying to Out-paradiddle each other,and to impress each other with their rudimentary talents on 'other' instruments.

It's kinda Punk without the Punk, and This Heat without the Heat, which leaves us with.... 'This'?

Haywoods vocals are as vulnerable and Wyatt-esque as This Heat and Camberwell Now, which adds much needed identity to the dreary Drum-Off. So when Haywood didn't turn up for the follow up albums,they just ended up sounding like Camberwell Now but without the tunes.

An obvious, but bold Idea, balancing precariously on the round shoulders of the limited tonal range of a well tuned drum kit.

Tracklist:

1.Noisy Champs
2.Sunday And Dimanche
3.Identity Parade
4.Polar
5.Post-Polar
6.Dernier Solo Avant L'Autoroute
7.White Elegance
8.The Letter
9.Dernier Rendez-Vous Au Gord
10.Flintstone
11.Maksymenko
12.3 Hommes Et Un Mouchoir

TELECHARGE this assault on les batteries ICI!

Lindsay Cooper – "The Small Screen, Music For Television" (Sync Pulse Records – 625) 1984

In an age where the television screen is no longer small, but the size of medium sized cinema screen,we are treated to a bunch of channel 4 commissioned films from the first year or so of  Britain's fourth channel.

Back in 1982 I excitedly rushed back from school to catch the start of a brand new channel which promised adventurous and challenging programming. I got home just in time to see the start at 5 o'clock,only to witness the naffest of quiz shows ever invented...'Countdown', the ultimate show for geeks and nerds everywhere!?....the first episode featuring celebrity farmer Ted Moult, who subsequently blew his brains out a few years after his character was stained by appearing on Countdown in the coveted role of Smart Arse.This death by boredom atrocity is still going today,although it has a sexier lady on the vowels, and consonants,the lovely Rachel Riley,and also an x-rated version presented by that potty mouthed tax evader Jimmy Carr.

The real tasty programmes started after the 9pm watershed,with the very wonderful "Five Go Mad In Dorset",featuring a wizard bunch of uncouth 'Alternative' comedian types,playing the roles of Enid "Nazi Sympathiser" Blyton's thoroughly racist,sexist and arrogant little twats, The Famous Five.

Then later still we got the type of experimental films that Lindsay Cooper and her ilk would have made soundtracks for, like the spiffing efforts featured on this rather splendid cassette.

She wasn't too bad for a girl!? Hurrah!

Notes:
Tracks A1 to A5:
Songs from five short films made by Lis Rhodes & Jo Davis (Four Corners for Channel 4).

Tracks A6 to A9:
Green Flutes, a film about a Republican flute band in Glasgow, directed by Nancy Schiesari for Channel 4.

Track A10:
Domestic Bliss a comedy/drama directed by Joy Chamberlain (Newsreel Collective for Channel 4).

Tracks B1 to B8:
With Our Children, a film about lesbian mothers directed by Melanie Chait (Lusia Films for Channel 4).

Tracklist:

A1 The Song Of The Goose & The Common
A2 Off The Fence
A3 Fair Exchange
A4 Windscale
A5 The Number 8 Bus
A6 Belfast
A7 Fanfare
A8 Flute Tune
A9 Priesthill
A10 End Credits
B1 Court Entry
B2 Lord Wilberforce
B3 Home Movie 1
B4 Open Letters
B5 Linda B.
B6 Home Movie 2
B7 Three Heads
B8 Julia/End Credits

DOWNLOAD via your small screen HERE!

Lindsay Cooper – "Outtakes For Other Occasions" ( No Man's Land – NML 8603 C) 1986

Well when I said that at least there were no feminist lyrics berating men for being men and not women, on The Feminist Improvising Group tape,yeah?...Well it seems that they....I used the word 'They' which in feminist newspeak usually means 'Men'...they,not 'they',saved that one for this tape of soundtracks for zero-budget plays and films that no-one got to see except a few chin stroking artphag's and the people who made them. 

"Score" from "Give Us A Smile",sung by improvising vocalist Maggie Nichols,with words by...wait for it....the Leeds Animation Workshop?... has all the paranoia and anti-male propaganda anyone could wish for......yeah of course everything is designed to keep women in their place,y'know, the kitchen and bed etc, blah blah blah.

It's enough to turn anyone into a misogynist inside three minutes.

'No Man's Land' is the label,but I notice Chris Cutler,and Fred Frith featuring prominently on the credits,dunno about you but the last time I checked they were officially 'Male'?

Otherwise, musically great,and reassuringly short. 

Tracklist:

From The Play "The Execution" 4:05
A1 Tsar's Band
A2 The Assassination
A3 The Evening Before
-
A4 Score (From The Film "Give Us A Smile") 3:00
B1 Washing Line (From The Film "Green Flutes")0:35
B2 Score (From The Film "Against The Current") 3:05
B3 Curtain Music From The Play "The Time Of Their Lives" 1:20
B4 Trih's Song 1:23

DOWNLOAD the occasional outtake HERE!

Feminist Improvising Group – "Feminist Improvising Group" (Self-released C-60) 1979

Everybody loves a feminist don't they?

So the challenge is how to alienate as many potential supporters of the cause as possible. This is normally achieved by letting Germain Greer talk uninterrupted for about twenty minutes. Another effective method of closing ears and minds to the feminist cause is by forming a free improvisation group and attaching the word feminist to the collective moniker.

Apparently Cumbrian folk singer Frankie Armstrong was once connected to this ensemble formed by Henry Cow bassoonist Lindsay Cooper,although not long enough to damage her virtually already non-existent career. This stuff could clear a room of Feminists in as long as it takes to burn a couple of peek-a-boo bra's. There will inevitably be a few blokes left to endure the noise, so they can brown nose the ladies with some opposite gender 'support', read that as the opposite genders hidden agenda,as most chaps think this Trojan horse approach will secure entry into the ladies under garments...think again chaps....ok yes it does work sometimes ...statistically.

At least they don't sing lyrics about all men being potential rapists....we already know that, and don't want to be preached at thanks.....we know, and it's to the male sex's credit that so few of them actually rape anyone at all...including other men.Never mentioned is that men are more frequently the victim of male violence than the fairer sex...world war 2 being the zenith of this genocide.Not helped in the previous war by thee so-called Fairer sex doling out white feathers to male pacifists shaming them as cowards.

Is there a Black Lives Matter Improvising group in formation?...if there is they are too late,as most of sixties free jazz beat everyone to it.

DOWNLOAD proof that women can make the same god-awful racket as their male counterparts HERE!...now that's equality?

MCH Band ‎– "Jsme Zdrávi A Daří Se Nám Dobře" (Fist Records) 1983

The MCH band couldn't get on groovy state label Supraphon,so they had to do the same as the UK bands who couldn't get on EMI, and make their own cassettes.
This is their second on Fist records.
More excellent proggy post-punk from darkest Czechoslovakia.

Tracklist:

A1 Prasinec
A2 Procházka Kolem Pivovaru
A3 Maškara Na Větvi
B1 Prej Hoří Národní Divadlo
B2 Viselci
B3 Truppen Marschieren Bei Nacht
B4 Kdo Ví

DOWNLOAD mch and his band HERE!

Unrest Work & Play ‎– "Informs" (Recommended Records ‎– RR C19) 1984

Mick Hobbs of The Work etc, was in 'The Momes' with Andy Wake of 'Unrest Work and Play', along with Tim Hodgkinson, late of Henry Cow/The Work........so......as we went on a little Mick Hobbs trip,in fact we are still on it(!); here's UWP's only proper album. A typically disjointed Avant-Prog exploration of musical sub-genres, in the Recommended Records stylee.

Tracklist:

A1 Rockabilly
A2 Heavy Metal
A3 Ballad
A4 Folk
A5 Art-Rock
B1 Pop
B2 Swing
B3 Blues
B4 Ethnic

DOWNLOAD and be informed HERE!

Officer! ‎– "Yes Yes No No Yes No Yes" (Officer! Self-released ‎– NO 001) 1988

Whereas "Cough" from 1985 reminded me of 'The Dirty Three', this lime green offering from the second summer of love reminds me of 'The Legendary Pink Dots' or maybe a more dysfunctional Deep Freeze Mice"?
This is an unfortunate comparison as I can't stand 'The LPD's', but love 'The Dirty Three',even'The Deep Freeze Mice' are growing on me,whereas they used to leave me cold (haha!?).
It's not quite as irritating as any LPD's release, and its eccentrically shambling and jaunty quality is actually rather charming.
The LPD's wore obvious influences on their sleeves, in their Casiotone Syd Barrett stylee, but I can't really identify Officer's specific inspirations, beyond perhaps some tuneful prog, like Caravan maybe?
Above all, this was one of the better records from the year that carved its name on the tombstone for the rock group forever,and the year zero of 'Chav' culture.I doubt Mick Hobbs was ever seen with a Brian Jones haircut shaking a pair of maracas or a tambourine ,dancing like a Twat!

Tracklist:

A1 Coma
A2 R Tune
A3 Simone
A4 Old St
A5 Remove Your Hat (Parts 1 & 2)
B1 (I've Got A) Nice Girlfriend
B2 (I Only Want To Make You) Smile
B3 Truck
B4 Hid It ('Cos I Wanted You To Find It)
B5 Gawping
B6 Bright Star

DOWNLOAD HERE!.....Yes or No?

Mick Hobbs ‎– "Bandagen/Officer!" (No Records ‎– No. 002) 1989

The Quirky post-prog lunacy of Mick Hobbs on solo duty,as theatre score composer and as his 'band', 'Officer!'.
Side A sees our Micky as provider of an avant-garde soundtrack to Pergoletti's stageplay "Bandagen", and side B has some 'Officer!' songs masquerading as superior 'Filler'.
For the Theatrical side,I suppose you need the play to augment the sparsity of the minimal content for maximum effect?
The 'Officer!' side  is Mick's usual abstract post-punk prog inventiveness,as he regularly churns out for The Work, The Momes, and Half-Japanese.
Naturally he gets some help from the usual suspects Like Tim Hodgkinson and Andy Wake, both from The Momes.

Tracklist:

Music From Bandagen

A1 Undovetailing
A2 Heartwood
A3 Kindliche Kleidung
A4 Spewing
A5 Jasminduft
A6 Inflation
A7 Ballacodep
A8 Deflated
A9 Happy Days, Lonely Nights
A10 Arbeitstitel 

Officer! - Some Songs

B1 Good Cement
B2 Plan For Peace
B3 My Song About My Head
B4 Hunter
B5 Damage
B6 Good Citizen's Car

DOWNLOAD illegally HERE officer!

The Work ‎– "The Worst Of Everywhere" (Woof Records ‎– WOOF 005) 1982

A novel angle on the 'Live' album by our fav proggy punky avant rockers, The Work.
Capturing a whole tour schedule in 69 untitled short snippets from April 1980 to March 1982 in Belgium, France, Finland, Germany, Holland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and Yugoslavia.All roughly recorded and roughly edited using the medium of audio cassette.
It kinda works as one,or maybe two sidelong disjointed conceptual collages, in the tradition of Frank Zappa's 'Lumpy Gravy',or at least in its post-punk version thereof?

Tracklist:

1-69 - "Untitled 1-69"

DOWNLOAD the worst of everywhere to anywhere HERE!

The Work ‎– "See" (Woof Records ‎– WOOF 015) 1992

I thought I'd posted this before,but I hadn't......I checked.
If you click HERE!.....you can find the rest my The Works posts from earlier in Blog-time......eg "Slow Crimes", "I Hate America" single, and 'Live im AJZ'........all rather excellent.
Just listened to it for the first time in years,and its yet another fantastic disjointed masterpiece of rock reinvention.If you like verse chorus verse chorus solo repeat, then don't download this.

Tracklist:

1 Blind 3:00
2 Steam 1:10
3 Eat 5:37
4 Disgrace 1:45
5 Shock 3:27
6 The Rim 4:41
7 Hive 5:32
8 Shine 4:54
9 Tell 3:58
10 Repossession 2:19
11 Warehouse 5:47
12 Pursuit 2:43 (for missing track 12 click here!)

DOWNLOAD see HEAR!

The Work - "Rubber Cage" (Woof Records ‎– WOOF 012) 1989

Wasn't this the second 'official' Work album from the end of the decade......I think it was y'know.
It's up to the same extremely high standards of progressive chord structures and odd time signatures that we've come to love.Prog-Punk at its highest possible level. If you were to play this at your meet the neighbours fondue based dinner party, it could either make you look intelligent, or weird,depending on the neighbours.As most neighbours are part of the 90%ers,and feel uncomfortable with abstract concepts, they will inevitably look upon you as 'Weird',so you may as well be hung for a horse than a sheep and whip out some 'Whitehouse' or Merzbow.That should stop the fuckers from asking for a cup of sugar,or saying 'Hello' everytime you leave the house.

Tracklist:

Poise 0:57
Abdomen 2:26
Felt 1:20
Commerce And Despair 2:46
Dangerfish 4:33
1992 5:58
Coloured Water 3:10
Stone 4:19
Trauma 3:44
Knee 1:52
Jay 2:20
Quack 3:40

DOWNLOAD some rubber from jonny HERE!

The Work ‎– "Live In Japan" (Recommended Records Japan ‎– RRJ 05) 1982

Deconstructed rock from Henry Cow spin off's, The Work. 
This Live performance in Osaka, featured the one and only Jim Whelton,aka Amos, of Homosexuals fame, on vocals.Which gives this some added kudos.
The Work's special kind of Prog inflected Post Punk is always rather interesting,and this album seems to capture them at their best.
Remarkably,this was recorded on a cassette half way back in the hall, which belies the extremely hi-fidelity quality of this recording somewhat. 

Tracklist:

A1 State Room 3:40
A2 Like This 3:01
A3 Fingers & Toes 3:02
A4 Pop 4:40
A5 Crabs 4:29
B1 Duty 2:10
B2 Cain & Abel 3:50
B3 Do It 2:16
B4 Tuning 0:43
B5 Flies 0:58
B6 Benidorm 1:42
B7 Night By The Sea 4:54

DOWNLOAD some hard work HERE!

Cassiber ‎– "Beauty & The Beast" (Rē Records ‎– Re 0110) 1984

  Cassiber's best album,which doesn't sound like an improv Bow Wow Wow, and sounds better than any Heiner Goebbels album. It does have a more “out” version of Robert Wyatt's cover version of Chic's “At Last I am Free”; which is another of my funeral songs (the Wyatt version). I do however like the concept of doing covers of covers,of covers; kinda like musical chinese whispers,where the end version sounds nothing at all like the original.

The album, as a whole, is more prog stained avant jazz filtered through Faust and Zappa than is considered healthy for any open mind 'that ain't so open that anything can fall right in'(Magazine 1978).

Tracklist :

A1 Six Rays 4:04
A2 Robert 4:52
A3 Last Call 3:01
A4 Ach Heile Mich 6:26
A5 Haruspices 1:56
B1 Under New Management 5:23
B2 Vengeance Is Dancing 2:14
B3 In Einer Minute 4:56
B4 Und Ich Werde Nicht Mehr Sehen 2:53
B5 Prendre La Lune Avec Les Dents 4:29
B6 At Last I Am Free 3:29

DOWNLOAD this beautiful beast HERE!

Cassiber ‎– "Man Or Monkey" (riskant ‎– 76.28640-1) 1982

Another from the Recommended Records stable,is Cassiber, a sort of Rock in Opposition supergroup, Chris Cutler (Henry Cow, and loads of other groups), Heiner Goebbels (no relation to Josef), and Free Jazzer/composer (Alfred Harth). This is the kind of music that those with low self-esteem play to impress people more intelligent than themselves.
Drummy improv jazz rock, with bursts of Picasso playing the trumpet, or sax, or look how many instruments I can play (Alfred Harth). There are a couple of tracks that accidentally sound like Bow Wow Wow(?); maybe they had top forty radio on before these improv sessions?
Am I impressing you?
I sincerely hope not; but this is a rather good tuneful semi-improvised LP that should appeal to a wide spectrum of prog rockers and euro prog fans across the northern hemisphere,and quite a bit of the southern one too.
Bow Wow Wow anyone?

Tracklist:

A1 Not Me
A2 Red Shadow
A3 Chor Der Gefangenen (The Prisoner Chorus)
B1 Our Colourful Culture
B2 O Cure Me
B3 This Core
C Man Or Monkey
D1 Django Vergibt
D2 Die Verunreinigung Des Flusses Ist Gerade Noch Erträglich
D3 Sag Mir Wo Die Blumen Sind (Where Have All Flowers Gone)

DOWNLOAD man, monkey or lp HERE!

The Momes - "Spiralling" (Woof Records ‎– WOOF 011) 1989

What do you get if you combine The Work with Unrest,Work and Play? No, not Unrest,Work,Work and Play. We get The Momes, which is French for The Brats,or the Kids, by the way(but should have one of those little hats over the 'O':mômes).

What does this combination sound like? Well,pretty much like Unrest,Work,Work and Play.

Yup, more disjointed art rock; Wot you don't get much of in these boring,boring ,times.

An Avant Rock in opposition super group,if ever there was one?

Tracklist:

A1	Lobby
A2	Friday
A3	Mirror Egg
A4	Bloodsucking Babies
A5	Ghosts
A6	Locus Swarm
B1	Core Of Water
B2	Dog
B3	World Is Only Turning
B4	Nitrate Mine
B5	Slab

DOWNLOAD these spiralling brats tracks HERE!

Unrest Work & Play ‎– "Sound Every Day" (Political Underground Records ‎– PU3) 1983

UWP's second 12 incher, is better than their first. More of the same splintered,falling down, art damaged post-punkery. They never got better than this.

They released an album on Recommended records,which was pretty crap, called “Informs”; I've included the best three tracks from this in the Zip file.(sorry I deleted the rest of the "Informs" album some time ago like a twat;so no full album to download i'm afraid!)

Tracklist :

A1	Change	2:25
A2	New Systems Arrive	2:07
A3	Bananas	5:51
B1	Wake Up Time	2:20
B2	Capital Swings	1:40
B3	Ritual Appearance	2:22
B4	Louder Than Language	6:31

DOWNLOAD and feel sound everyday HERE!