Dr. Timothy Leary ‎– "The Final Taboo" (Trance Port Tapes ‎– trance 7) 1984

Ha Ha Haaaa, drugs eh?
Breaking the Final Taboo,I can think of a few more final taboo's that still cannot be broken,is a lecture given by Timothy Leary at a club in Huntington Beach, California, in June, 1980.The speech is a great compilation of his ideas and his personal story. He touches upon his usual topics of authorities, evolution, turning-on, and migration. While he does,as usual, talk about drugs quite a bit, he doesn't go into too much detail about LSD or a typical LSD experience(Yawn). He does however talk a bit about a new drug (at the time), ecstasy, or as he calls it "XTC",or as I call it the destroyer of modern music and counter culture.Timothy Leary,however, is as witty and eloquent  as ever in this recording. He rolls-off the puns as well as any professional stand-up comedian,and has a very willing and 'loyal contingent of dopers' rolling around in the aisles.He missed his real vocation I reckon.

Tracklist:

A1 Richard Pryor
A2 A Risky Profession
A3 Washington B.C.
A4 The San Andreas Opportunity
A5 Short Term Memory Loss
A6 Life Is Not An Accident
A7 The Bible Version Of Creation
A8 Conception Of My Conception
B1 Botanical Wisdom
B2 Victimless Crimes In The 60's
B3 Drugs Of The 80's
B4 Space Migration
B5 Prison Life
B6 The Final Taboo

DOWNLOAD a psych-ologist stand-up routine HERE!

An Bene / Pierre Lambow ‎– "Sustained Space" (Trance Port Tapes ‎– trance 3) 1983

The tape that gave us the title to the L.A.Mantra compilations was an Eno and Cluster inspired soft blast of droning ambient electronica. Rather pleasant it is too,and even transcends succumbing to the background music tag,which is the fate of many an ambient album."Sustained Space" managed to sustain the listener's interest level with adequate amounts of floating strangeness to stave off the boredom one usually encounters with these type of records.This is not another boring ambient drone record in other words.

Tracklist:

A1	Celestial
A2	Primitive Hunt
A3	Raga Riley
A4	L.A. Mantra
B1	No Sun
B2	Robot Jungle
B3	You & Me & I
B4	March To Auschwitz

DOWNLOAD a sustained space HERE!

Afterimage ‎– "Anthology" (Trance Port Tapes ‎– trance 6) 1984

Doomy pop music is a rarity in the USA,except in the stagey and laughable world of metal; swamped by the ugly tide of faux optimism that every american seems to be force fed from conception to the moment they realise that its all bullshit,and you have to be connected to the Bush family to be president. Luckily they have a source of misery imported from their former colonial masters in Great Britain,who do a peerless line in moaning woe and self-pity to help counter balance the sickening "Have a nice day" fakery . No place is faker than L.A.,and remarkably there were people who understood the colloquial aural watercolours of smog ridden post-industrial Manchester of Joy Division in sunny california! Even their name is a song by dreary Northerners, Section 25, but Afterimage were some kind of rare UK post punk tribute band in the heart of Tinseltown?.......how could this be?
Remember,that the US version of UK Punk happened in California,despite the sunshine and the promise of success on every billboard. It all came from a different place to the UK. Instead of the despondency ,hopelessness, and poverty, these kids were confronted with unattainable lifestyles in a vacuous metropolis made for the uber klass.While they were stuck in forgotten blue collar ghetto's,taunted by the propaganda of the American nightmare. A very different kind of Isolation to the one Joy Division experienced,but essentially still coming from the outside. Mixed in with the claustrophobic paranoia of PiL and some whinging moaning of the Cure, and you have a very strange californian group to say the least.
Needless to say, they were met with hostility from the moronic LA club scene,which basically just wanted to "Rock out Maaan",and were not arty enough for the Los Angeles Free Music Society, so inevitably died a death before this Anthology of their few releases came out on the trendy Trance port Tapes in 1984. Twenty years later they could have been Interpol! Wrong time, wrong place, wrong haircuts!

Tracklist:

A1	The Long Walk
A2	Strange Confession
A3	On The Verge
A4	Faces To Hide
A5	Idol (Instru.)
A6	Surf Generator
A7	No Dreams
B1	Soundtrack
B2	The Long Walk
B3	Idol
B4	Breaking Point
B5	Afterimage
B6	Faces To Hide
B7	American Tragedy

DOWNLOAD some american doom pop from twenty years before Interpol HERE!(including booklet)

John J. Lafia ‎– "Prayers" (Trance Port Tapes ‎– trance 4) 1984

 

John J. Lafia ? Dunno who this guy was/is, but this cassette is one of the best primitive futurist minimal electronic records I have heard.

Full of fuzzy space, disembodied passionless voices, warm rounded analogue electronics, sparse beats, from the days before MIDI connectivity turned everyone into a electronic orchestra.

This is the sound of alienated isolation, in a world where humanity is in danger of becoming terminally redundant. Far more relevant to the modern world than it was in 1983.This is an age where we carry our brains everywhere we go and call them smart phones,the first stage of human evolution into Cyborgs.......and what’s wrong with that ?.....put answers on a postcard and send them to Mr Tony Blair, New World Order HQ, Jerusalem, Palestine.

Tracklist:

A1	Life Is Short
A2	Dream
A3	Fear
A4	Ritual
A5	Sinking
B1	A Promise
B2	Spaghetti Western
B3	Flying
B4	Hidden Things
B5	Escape

DOWNLOAD and pray for more like this HERE!

Various Artists ‎– "Live At The Trance Port" (Trance Port Tapes ‎– trance 5) 1984

More from post-punk L.A., means more from Trance Port Tapes, and 'Live From The Trance Port' cassette.Which is basically what it suggests ,live recordings from four Trance Port artists.

First up we get the 'Electronic Beat Poetry' of 'Randall Kennedy In Reconstruction'. A kind of hipster white rap set to a backing of a mutant disco electronic backing. Rather effective,but three tracks is enough of that I reckon.(A full tape of this exists on Trance Port ?it might be available soon via Carlo ?-see comments on L.A. Mantra).

The LAFMS connection part one is the improvised chamber music of the wonderfully named ,Fat & Fucked Up. Serving up a quarter of an hours worth of cello scraping,viola plucking,contra bass slapping,scat squealing modern pseudo classical improvisation. A fine act indeed.

Stillife get all minimal, with three hypnotic tunes that remind one of Steve Reich,Terry Riley, and Eno coming at ya all in one big repetitive ambient mantra. This would have undoubtedly been taken more seriously in New York, leading to a string of LP's on CBS classical.

Finally we get LAFMS part two,another Brad Laner vehicle, Debt of Nature. Abrasive,crude,highly treated Punk,is what it says in the booklet.Who am I to argue with that ? These are the best tracks on the tape by nano-metres (that’s a very small distance to you sensible persons out there).

Tracklist:

A1	–Randall Kennedy In Reconstruction	Smith's Room	3:47
A2	–Randall Kennedy In Reconstruction	Graveview Trace	4:10
A3	–Randall Kennedy In Reconstruction	Let's Do It	4:08
A4	–Fat & Fucked Up	Suite For The House Of The Lost Boy (In Five Parts)	15:31
B1	–Stillife	Celadon	7:23
B2	–Stillife	To The Light (For Ellen)	7:22
B3	–Stillife	African Slugfest	5:19
B4	–Debt Of Nature	Officer Dillon (We're Going To Kill You)	1:49
B5	–Debt Of Nature	Inside Out	10:38

DOWNLOAD from the trance port HERE!

Various ‎Artists – "L.A. Mantra" (Trance Port Tapes ‎– Trance 1) 1983

Another classic Californian compilation is the “L.A. Matrix“ c-60 compilation from 1983.

The fact that it features one of the best band names of all time,(Fat and Fucked Up) is recommendation enough; but it has everything you could wish for from an underground comp from the post punk period.

We got Motorik style krautrock revival from Still Life, minimal electronic primitivism from If-Then-Else, dark ambient, Post Punk, Avant Rock, you name it, it is probably in here somewhere.

Not quite up there with 'Darker Skratcher' or 'Live at target', but its pretty close.And there are tenuous LAFMS connections,and an appearance by Brad Laner on the Debt of Nature track

 Tracklist:

A1	– If-Then-Else	Hey Big Oil
A2	– Stil life	Rubrica
A3	– Afterimage	Afterimage
A4	– Rand Kennedy*	Enorma Jones
A5	– Debt Of Nature	L.A. Weekly Is God
A6	– Rich Evac	A Scanner Darkly
A7	– Tunneltones	Last Line For Love
A8	– Mark Bucholtz	Winds From Nowhere
A9	– A Produce	Erosion
B1	– An Bene - Pierre Lambow	Robot Jungle
B2	– Savage Republic	Attempted Coup: Madagascar
B3	– If-Then-Else	The Wedge
B4	– Fat & Fucked Up	Fugue B
B5	– Chas Smith	October '68
B6	– Rand Kennedy*	Smith's Room
B7	– Afterimage	Idol
B8	– Michael Le Donne-Bhennet	Vaporous Architecture #3

DOWNLOAD a mantra from L.A. HERE!