Udder Milk Decay – "Take A Teat" (Self Released Teat-001) 1981

It has been brought to my attention that this LP had the signature of Jim Whelton of The Homosexuals, Amos and Sara etc written all over it..'tis hard to say without hearing Amos's trademark pisstake singing style.,but the artwork,and prankster style use of repurposed northern NWOBHM gods, Saxon, record labels,tended to suggest that maybe this rumour was correct?

Turns out that ,(thanks to the tireless research of PJ...you know who you are), that this speculation was utter bollox,or bullocks, as one of the culprits has been located.

'Twas one Jim Hunkin, rather than Jim Whelton,, with his brother Tim Hunkin, not Tim Whelton, buggering about at Brighton Art College with various sound generators what done it..

Listening to it with this new enlightenment, it's obviously nothing to do with Amos and Crew at all, despite the aesthetic parallels.

It sounds more like the BBC Radiophonic Workshop with a spoonful of Perrey and Kingsley during their "In sound from way out" days. Could easily be a lost soundtrack to a wiped Dr. Who episode from 1965.

Which therefore makes this a supremely collectible piece of post modern  proto-electronica musique concréte which won'y get you much more than a Donkey's change out of a Monkey.

Although I sincerely hope they aren't taking the Piss out of Saxon?....my NWOBHM band of preference,the kings of the the one note bassline.

er......happy new fucking year you bunch o'cunts.

Tracklist:

TOP:

1-4 untitled

BOTTOM:

5-7 Untitled

DOWNLOAD this decaying milk HERE!

 

Duplo Chat – "Duplo Chat" (Moon Mist Music- mmm) 2015

 Ahhhh, a piece for that old standard of the DIY experimental underground.......The badly tuned Radio.

This was probably the first electronic instrument I owned.Short wave was a favourite,but this one sounds more on the Long Wave spectrum,accompanied by a rather oxidated tuning knob.

There may also be either some evidence of cutlery use or a couple of kitchen pans,with stapler in subtle use here too,plus the odd isolated cough among the foggy room ambiance on offer.

The knob handler here is none other than Robert Ridley-Shackleton,capturing 30 minutes of time that would have otherwise gone un-noticed if no-one had bothered to record it. Of course there will be some people,if can call them 'people', out there, who will wish that he hadn't bothered;but they need to realise that there was a moment that doesn't even have a noun, or even a pro-noun, when Time didn't exist,as it still doesn't somewhere beyond the event horizon of a super massive black hole.This is in fact a recording of the microwave background left behind by the singularity which we now call 'the Big Bang',an echo of a time before time if you will.

There is some doubt as to the uniqueness of this singularity,so there may be plenty,if not infinite, versions of this C-30 cassette existing in places that neither light nor time will ever reach us as we accelerate,expanding into the vast darkness of space/time.A mystery we will only understand on our death beds......if you're lucky enough to die in bed that is.Be also aware that the laws of quantum Physics also suggest that in at least one of these realities, there will be a 'God',so let's hope it's not this one,or we're all fucked by his/her pathetic need for vengeance, and there will be a whole bunch of unspeakably awful Red Necks taunting us smart arses from behind the pearly gates as we get channeled, by a laughing Putin and Trump kicking our arses towards the 'other place'.Which I guess does have its own rewards.At least the only bible bashers we will encounter in this imaginary Hell would be peadophile priests,and and followers of non mono-theistic religions such as Hunduism,celebrity-ism,and Paganism.Non-Mono's we will call them.

All this and more, captured within the static and oxidized rheostats of a transistor radio...who'd have thought it?

Tracklist:

1.Side A

2.Side B 

DOWNLOAD some digital duplo bricks of radio static HERE!

Stanlow Crickets – "Navigation Of Loplop" (Sound Of Pig – SOP #144) 1988

This bloke called Philip Seifert is responsible for this ,undoubtedly with the assistance of Al Margolis one would assume,it being on his Sound Of Pig cassette label.

Kerazzy musique concréte,with liberal use of a second hand emulator to blind the less informed with yesterdays science.

Yeah it gets on yer Tits,but somebody out there who was locked in a cupboard for their early adulthood will find this very novel indeed.

Its certainly fun to listen to the cutting edge of low budget sound technology in 1988,especially by persons who were thankfully clueless as to what those charming,....and this part is satirical,so don't cancel me,.... coloured gentlemen,... were doing with the same kit in Chicago and Detroit at the same time.....ie, stuff like this with a marching beat and a lot of electronic squelching noises stuffed in there....("Acid House is two minutes and 30 seconds of squelching noises" said an anonymous wag in 1988,rather like John Lydon's description of the sex act a decade earlier?...ok,rumbled....it was me wot said it,about five minutes ago!Ok?

As I notice that Jeremy Clarkson got cancelled by Jeff Bozos this morning for saying this very Die Or Diy observation on the subject of the lovely Megan Markle....i will repeat:

"At night, I'm unable to sleep as I lie there, grinding my teeth and dreaming of the day when she is made to parade naked through the streets of every town in Britain while the crowds chant, 'Shame!' and throw lumps of excrement at her." ....couldn't have possibly put it better myself.

The axe is being wielded for offense givers such as we and he,as one heads in a runaway bus towards the dull and sinister world of terminal fucking boredom during the horrors of the oncoming 'Nice' revolution....the exact opposite of Skullflowers superb "Exquisite Fucking Boredom" album (up next),but something more akin to "La Terreur" after the first bit of the French Revolution;except in that terror, you could still make a joke and survive.

Yes i did say 'Charming Coloured Gentlemen'...soon to be a capital offence punishable by forcing this smart arse to clean out the latrines of the Re-education centers that were once our homes.My father did the same thing during his incarceration by the Nazi's in World War 2, cleaning out the 'twenty holer',as he put it, latrine in the POW Camp.

The old newspeak word 'Degenerate' will be replaced with the Nadsat friendly term,'Offensive' in the realms of art and entertainment.

But at least the Nazi's oganized sn exhibition before they burnt it.Hide your hard-drives in a lead lined box before the "Great Erasure"....no,not the pop duo, the satellite Erasure beam that will cleanse the earth of anything Offensive.The Year Zero of Nice. 

Tracklist:

A1 Messy's Alarm Cock
A2 Furniture Cornices
A3 Ocelot Acrobat
A4 Passage To Dadaville
A5 Hebjirma
A6 A Pigeon Flies Against A Fish
A7 Mala Baka Haka
A8 Absorbing Roots Of Rest
A9 Radiophonics
A10 Scaffolds In The Collapsed Lung
A11 Preparation Of Glue From Bones
A12 Epoxy Faced Bison
A13 Dugong
A14 Distressed Goresa In A Plaid Tie
A15 Basket, Bottle, And Wallpaper
A16 Cacomixtle
B1 The Naivete Of Slirpin Serpents
B2 Intentions Of The Heel
B3 Slivery Moths Apply Their Makeup
B4 Birdman Gets A Bismuth Bath
B5 Slivery Moths Reach For Hands
B6 Thirsty Rain Doves
B7 Lustre
B8 Loplop Eats A Banana
B9 Wireless Sidesteps

B10 Outro

DOWNLOAD before offence is taken HERE!

Amok – "Warm Leeches Dance" (ADN – ADN TAPES 17) 1985

There are two modern musical idioms that Italians seem to have taken a rosy view upon,Progressive Rock being the most obvious, and the other,being that which is loosely termed 'industrial'. A genre, that is in fact, Progressive Rock for persons who can't actually play any instruments,unless left field literature is an instrument?

Here we find Mr Amok ,Enrico Piva, giving us a lesson in overthinking,inspired by Freud's "Jenseits des Lustprinzip (Death Pulsion)", which we've all read haven't we?

Of course the word 'Death' has to make an appearance,but thankfully Enrico has mercifully left out any boringly obvious Nazi references......which makes me think that this isn't Industrial music at all...that's for arse-lickers. This is more like a sound installation,made for an audience of chin stroking sub-intellectual posers who really wish they were at a Van Der Graaf Generator gig...I know I do.

Genesis P. being Ironic..... Again!?
I bet you he'd read "Jenseits des Lustprinzip"....or maybe wishes he had?

Amok, however non-amok this tape is,is perfect background muzak for your Abstract Impressionism soirée held every other Tuesday at the community centre;but if you last ten minutes into side one I'll give you a candy bar,augmented by a nice squishy Leech or two. 

It was,however, recorded in a steel barge in Finland after all?

Tracklist:

A1 Warm Leeches Dance 29:42
B1 Warm Leeches Dance 29:43

DOWNLOAD some dance musick for bloodsuckers HERE!

Edgard Varèse ‎– "Complete Works Of Edgard Varèse, Volume 1" (EMS Recordings ‎– EMS401) 1950/1962

Edgard Varèse has been credited as the "Father of Electronic Music",probably by himself. There's a clear behavioural pattern among artists,especially classical composers, to control events with zero wriggle room. They either long to be either dictators or composers.They are the large pulsating brain in the centre of the orchestra.If they could not do this they would regularly crop up in the extreme ends of the Political spectrum,the number one destination for the failed artist.As they cannot legally control people any other way than they could a triangle player in a symphony Orchestra,sadistically allowing him just one note,then woe betide you if you got it a nanosecond out of place. I'm sure that if Artists weren't given their medium to ejaculate their need for control they would vent their anger in the form of some attempt at doing Genocide properly,and this time 'no more mr Nice Guy!

"I Long for instruments(read instruments as people) obedient to my thought and whim, with their contribution of a whole new world of unsuspected sounds, which will lend themselves to the exigencies of my inner rhythm." Varèse said in June 1917,obviously his mind was with the millions of young men being slaughtered on a small strip of land in north-eastern France at the time?

As for the 'Father of Electronics' title, i would suggest there are far more worthy and earlier pretenders to the throne than Varèse,but all those Frank Zappa fans grasping over every word their hero said,won't have it any other way....Frank liked Edgard,that's all you need to know.

Ed had been hoping for using some electrical devices in his music since the twenties,composing a piece for two Theremins and voice.Then, with electronic music at last a real possibility owing to the development of the tape recorder, Varèse produced Déserts for wind, percussion and tape (1954) and Poème Électronique (1957-8), devised to be diffused,very influentially, in the Philips pavilion at the Brussels Exposition of 1958.

His non-electronic pieces, have a tendancy to sound like a bucking mule in an empty kitchen...with police siren of course.....I told you he was wacky? There are other pieces that sound not unlike the Car Horn factory that Laurel and Hardy worked in in "Saps At Sea".....horns....HORNS.....HOOOOORRRRRNNNNNSSSSS!.....after hearing this you too will need rest and plenty of sea air just like Oliver Norville Hardy was recommended by his physician.

The more trad avant-garde works on this album were recorded in New York City in 1950,taken from the original mono master tapes, except 'Interpolations' which are in stereo,and recorded in 1954.'Interpolations' are 'organized sound' compositions on magnetic tape, realized in the studios of the highfalutin Groupe de Musique Concrète,Paris.This is was that french roman nose was evolved for,to look down on 'us' along.

The original album didn't have the more Musique Concrete/electronic numbers on it, so I took the liberty of adding them, in their original, done by Edgard himself versions......so all you Zappa fans can rest easy.

Tracklist:

1 Ionisation 5:27
2 Density 21.5 3:57

Interpolations (From Déserts) (9:22)
3 Interpolation I 3:00
4 Interpolation II 2:12
5 Interpolation III 4:10

6 Octandre 7:34
7 Intégrales 10:33

8 Poème Électronique

DOWNLOAD a little electronics and a whole lotta HORNS HERE"

Basil Kirchin - "Worlds Within Worlds" (Columbia ‎– SCX 6463) 1971

Looking like the Wolfman for need of a better description, Basil was a much overlooked innovator in the world of improvised music and tape composition. "Worlds Within Worlds" contains so many ideas,constantly shifting direction,that it sounds like a frustrated experimental musician's attempt at compressing all his ideas into this rare moment where he was allowed to express himself.
Any album where the sounds sources are credited to:
1 Gorilla
2 Hornbills
4 Flamingos
Various amplified insects, animals, birds, jets, and other engines. Sounds of the docks in Hull, Yorkshire... and the autistic children of the community of Schurmatt, Switzerland.

Augmented by one (uncredited)Derek Bailey, and Evan Parker,who were basically, the UK Improv Jazz underground.

Erroneously labelled the 'Father of Ambient'retrospectively,and a major influence of the 'other' 'father of Ambient', Brian Eno,Nurse With Wound was also an obvious recipient of the Kirchin influence. Basil made his living playing in jazz bands from the early forties and writing sweet tunes for the 60's and 70's UK Film Industry.

Let off the leash by EMI in 1971, Basil poured aall his ideas into this two part album,which is a whirlpool of found sounds,tape effects, field recordings,spontaneous improv,and jazz.Certainly a unique album,which was released in two parts...the first in 1971, and the second part, with the same title but different tracks, in 1974.....complete with ENO sleevenotes.

I've stuck them together, so you get the uninterrupted version,as originally intended.A bargain bin favourite,it never sold enough to justify the EMI conglomerate to allow the same mistake twice,so Baz stuck to film,and library music,but always continued experimenting off duty.The results of which are still being regularly released on the Trunk label.In,how we brits say,"Continental Europe", our Basil would have been made a professor at the national academy of Music...but he would have had to have a haircut,get some glasses,and wear a suit.You're either 'pop' or you're 'Not' in the UK.

It does say 'File Under Popular' on the rear cover?....hmmmm I'd love to see the face of someone in 1971 who took a blind punt on this?!

Tracklist:

1.Part I - Integration (Non-Racial)
2.Part II - The Human Element
3.Part III - Emergence
4.Part IV - Evolution

DOWNLOAD basils world into your world HERE!

Various ‎Artists – "Electronic Panorama: Paris, Tokyo, Utrecht, Warszawa" (Philips ‎– 6740 001) 1970

This is the 'NOW that's what I call music" for Musique Concrete,or "NOW That's what I don't call Musique" for most people. Looking at the pictures of the artists on insert cover, it seems that to make music like this you needed to wear National Health Service spectacles,wear a suit, have a side-parting even if you were balding, and be male! The being 'male' part was not an essential ingredient,as emphasized on this blog, by the lengthy 'Women in Electronics' thread wot I dun a few weeks back. And there's me thinking that Holland was a progressively liberal state.
More likely is that women,sensible creatures that they are, just don't wanna make silly directionless sonic nonsense, or Nonsense Sonique, like this;putting their undeniable talents into such popular male ghetto's as Football,getting blind drunk and mindless violence.

The intention of this four disc compilation was to show us nay-sayers that Musique Concrete was a worlwide phenomenon,and we do get some early noise pioneers from Japan,which is where the best disc in this quadruple album draws its tracks from.Was this the start of the japanoise obsession with how to damage ears without touching them....an extention of their interest in torture and disembowelling themselves at the drop of a hat.
The French disc, naturally has all the legends of Concréte, Schaeffer,Henry, Ferrari, Parmegiani, in fact anyone without a French surname.
After listening to the entire three hours and twenty minutes of this album, you will be willingly joining your Japanese chums with a celebratory disembowelling.After raiding this for a bunch of rather marvellous samples of course.


Tracklist:

Disc 1: Groupe De Recherches Musicales De L'O.R.T.F.
1–Ivo Malec- Spot 1:35
2–Luc Ferrari- Visage V 10:34
3–Guy Reibel- 2 Variations En Étoile 6:49
4–Bernard Parmegiani- Ponomatopées 6:33
5–Bernard Parmegiani- Générique 2:20
6–Pierre Schaeffer- / Pierre Henry- Bidule En Ut 2:30
7–Ivo Malec- Dahovi II 7:20
8–Pierre Schaeffer- Étude Aux Allures 3:30
9–François Bayle Solitioude 6:30
Disc 2: Studio Voor Elektronische Muziek Utrecht
10–Jaap Vink- Screen 7:30
11–Milan Stibilj- Rainbow 7:00
12–Frits Weiland- Textuur 6:50
13–Jacob Cats- Lux 6:55
14–Alireza Maschayeki- Shur 6:40
15–Luctor Ponse- Radiophone 6:01
16–Jos Kunst- Expulsion 9:00
17–Gottfried Michael Koenig- Funktion Blau 6:00
Disc 3: Studio Of Radio NHK, Tokyo
18–Toshiro Mayuzumi- Mandara 10:20
19–Maki Ishii- Kyoō 13:15
20–Minao Shibata- Improvisation 9:32
21–Makoto Moroi- Shōsanke 13:20
Disc 4:Studio Eksperymentalne Polskie Radio
22–Krzysztof Penderecki- Psalmus 5:05
23–Andrzej Dobrowolski- Musique Pour Bande Magnétique Et Hautbois Solo 9:00
24–Arne Nordheim- Solitaire 11:00
25–Włodzimierz Kotoński- Microstructures 5:20
26–Bogusław Schaeffer- Symphonie 17:40

DOWNLOAD music to disembowell yourself to HERE!

Tod Dockstader ‎– "Eight Electronic Pieces" (Self-Released) 1961

Thanks Tod, I knew I was the real talent behind all these musique concrete records.....as the man himself explains:

"Electronic music is recorded music -it exists only in a recording. The cuts on this record are not performances that have been recorded - they ARE the performances; you perform the piece when you play it on the phonograph."

Hmmmmmmm?

Tod was a sound effects engineer for animated cartoons in 1950's Hollywood,when he must have heard a few of his contemporaries getting acclaim for making so-called 'Avant-Garde'records that sounded like the sound effects he was making for kids cartoons.

Smartly realising that he could do this 'Musique Concrete' stuff,he began making 'Electronic' pieces from 1958 onwards.

Not so smartly,he would soon realise that there's bugger all money in Avant-Garde composition, but it can lead to a string of easily impressed stalkers,similar to those who think Artists are 'special', and that Poets aren't just lazy short story writers.

Musique Concrete has many similarities with Poetry,and Abstract Painting,as its the easier route to making product.Just as Poets don't have the staying power to even write a pamphlet of their dreary prose,if they write anything at all,-the pose is the prose-,and Abstract painters don't even have to paint something recognisable,Avant Garde Electronics relieve the composer of the hassle of writing a melody...its too bloody difficult for starters.The only brain power needed is to dream up some confusing explanation to justify the general inactivity surrounding these finished works of Art.No-one can say you're not working when you're primarily a "Thinker".

The basic needs of the male can be met simply by covering his lack of actual talent with a thick layer of bullshit.This will bring him credulous young women,fame, to appeal to ladies he's never met,and rave reviews by equally pretentious and talentless art critics,to boost his ego.Yes 'Artists' of all kinds are generally lazy talentless bastards looking for a life livin' on easy street.

Whether Tod Dockstader fits into this category, I don't know;but he did manage to create this without going to a music school,and self-release his own album...all this in 1961. How many he actually sold isn't revealed, but Folkways Records later re-released it,eager to get on that darn Avant-Garde bandwagon that was gaining momentum by 1961.

Well I enjoyed it anyway...me being a pretentious feckless arsehole looking for an easy earner.Or,simply that i like funny noises....Don't we all?

Tracklist:

1 Piece #1 2:01
2 Piece #2 3:06
3 Piece #3 4:12
4 Piece #4 2:31
5 Piece #5 4:32
6 Piece #6 3:09
7 Piece #7 8:01
8 Piece #8 9:08

DOWNLOAD and perform HERE!

Josef Anton Riedl ‎– "Klangregionen 1951- 2007" (Edition RZ ‎– Ed. RZ 1020-21) 2009

Another pioneer of concrete and Early electronic music composition, Riedl co-founded and became music director of Siemens Studio für elektronische Musik in the nazi homeland of Munich (1956-66)...good to hear that Siemens' massive war profits from slave labour were invested in something worthwhile?

The 'music' on this retrospective has the same problem as most of the Musique Concrete lot,an inate inability to repeat any of the sequences to suggest at least, some, musicality,rather than just piling one noise after another so it becomes more like a sound effects record rather than an articulate piece of modern composition. The dark ambient pieces apart, the stream of funny noises does tend to get on one's proverbial tits somewhat....an accusation that admittedly doesn't just fall at the feet of Herr Riedl.There are many other guilty parties in the early Electronics gang.

Nonetheless there are many atmospheric and interesting works among these 24 tracks worthy of admission into the Electronic Hall Of Fame.

I'd better end it there before I start ranting on about Nazi's ,who's a Nazi, and who isn't a Nazi,again....I'm beginning to sound like an Industrial tape in flesh,but without the tape echo effects!?

However,this doesn't change the fact that without Nazi's there'd be nothing worth watching on TV, and next to nothing to accuse each other of, which would make for a very boring life. 'Nazi-Fatigue is as real a thing as 'Holocaust Fatigue';don't let it get cha!

Tracklist:

1 Paper Music I 4:28
2 Studie 59 I 2:39
3 Zeichnen - Klatschen / Zeichnen - Zeichnen 4:00
4 Aus Landschaftsbeschreibung I 4:58
5 Mix Fontana Mix 4:58
6 Silphium 4:08
7 Lautgedichtfolge G) 4:52
8 Ausfluss, Niederschlag, Spur, Nachhall I 4:17
9 Douce-amère 3:06
10 Komposition Nr. 2 10:15
11 Polygonum 1:25
12 Leonce Und Lena 1:44
13 Vielleicht - Duo 3:16
14 Musique Concrète - Studie II 2:27
15 Musique Concrète - Studie I 2:53
16 Leonce Und Lena B 3:38
17 Folge Von 4 Studien: Studie 62 I 2:07
18 Folge Von 4 Studien: Studie 62 II 5:46
19 Klangsynchronie I Studie 59 6:16
20 Studie 61 I 2:08
21 Komposition Nr. 3 6:49
22 Ideir Notna Fesoj 51:02
23 Elektronische Musik - Studie II 2:17
24 Elektronische Musik - Studie I 5:46

DOWNLOAD some german electronics with very few nazi references HERE!

Various Artists ‎– "Electronic 2000 (Philips ‎– 6585 007) 1971

While everyone in the British Isles were inexplicably making music everyone wanted to listen to and pay enormous amounts of money to its creators for the privilege, the also-ran nations were releasing compilations of serious minded weirdness  by even more serious looking librarian types and university lecturers. The Netherlands being one of the main culprits;making music no-one wanted to listen to, never mind pay for. This compilation,one of thousands from the same epoch with the word 'Electronic' in its title, is a case in point,bringing together Librarians from all over the world to appear on an evocation of what we would all be dancing to in the RollerDisco by the year 2000......which was, and still is the Future, where good taste in Electronica resides.
Back in 1980,which I also mistakenly thought was 'the Future', the year 2000 seemed unimaginably far away,and one could only wonder at what magic awaited us in the ensuing 21st century........i think you know where this is going?........indeed what treasures have we been spoilt with in the first two decades of the Two Thousand's......Twerking, free internet porn for the starving,Kanye West, instant information on what Kim CarKrashian is doing in any given second, Cars that all look the same,but still use the internal combustion engine and rubber tyres, trains that can get you anywhere you want to be late in, as quickly as possible.......I could go on,but basically fuck-all has changed fundementally since 1980.Except, easier acces to the kind of prescription medication that you can see in blurry form on the cover of this aural prediction on plastic.......a recorded medium that we thought would never survive the Millenium,but twenty years hence is now the fastest growing seller in this shrinking market. One advancement is that super-rich pop stars are now endangered species,'cus we can get all their rip-off product for freeeeee, just like those poor little starving kids in africa can now all access freee pornography.
One prediction that has certainly gone wrong, is that we'll all be listening to Penderecki by 2012, and dancing to Luctor Ponse in the skool disko by 2008-ish.
Almost true......male record collectors now chew their arms off to get hold of a vinyl copy of this album,and others like it, to impress ....er....other male record collectors.

What??.....the record?.....oh yes.....its dead good.
Track 1 is your typical Japanese groaning woman intersperced with Hitler speeches over an electronic morass....you know the one Beyoncé wanted to do a cover version of.And the type of record that many an Industrial Artist ripped off and made their own,whilst at the same time moaning that illegal downloading was costing them money???
The rest is quite simply,just as good,especially the rampant use of a short wave radio on track 4, and could clear a room of K-Pop fans in nano-seconds.
It is therefore highly recommended to download this for Freeeee,and deprive these musique concréte masters of the same one quarter of one percent of the profits that you are denying Feargal Sharkey of everytime you illegally download 'Teenage Kicks'.


Tracklist:

A1 –Toshiro Mayuzumi- Mandara 10:20
A2 –Krzysztof Penderecki- Psalmus 5:05
A3 –François Bayle- Solitioude 6:30
B1 –Luctor Ponse- Radiophonie I 6:01
B2 –Milan Stibilj- Rainbow 7:00
B3 –Bernard Parmegiani- Générique 2:20
B4 –Jos Kunst- Expulsion 9:00

DOWNLOAD via your trendy vintage 1999 AOL dial-up conection HERE!

Various ‎Artists – "Musical Offering / Музыкальное Приношение" (Мелодия ‎– С60 30721 000) 1990

The Soviets insisted that anything the capitalists could do,they could at least match it,usually making these things on a budget of close to zero,held together with straw and snot, like their version of Concorde,the supersonic passenger jet,Concordski,which crashed at the Paris airshow in 1973. As soon as the "more Equal Than Thou" members of the Polit Bureau heard of the EMS synth,they wanted their own 'Socialist' version, that their great and glorious electronic composers could all use.......this was called, the 'ANS' synthesizer;notice any similarities there?
One of the first synthesizers in the world (aka in The USSR), it was created by the Russian engineer E. Murzin over a period of twenty years from 1937, and it created music using light, rather than electrical variations, unlike all other synthesizers,except Daphne Oram's Oramics machine of course.This replaced the soviet version of the synth which involved high voltage cables attached to the genetils of 88 Oboe playing dissidents,and a series of levers that, when thrown in a sequence, would apply the adequate voltage to make the dissedent play his allocated note on the Oboe stapled to his mouth. This was fully polyphonic,but had its drawbacks, like the oboe player dying, and it emitted an awful smell of burning ball-bag hairs.Now that's what i call 'Electronic Music'!?
For Murzin's light synth,he,or the KGB, invited,or ordered, young,but qualified, composers to come and work on some new electronic pieces....this time without electrodes or any pointing guns,and the resulting works are showcased on this post Berlin wall collapse album released by crumbling state label Melodia.

Recorded between 1964 and 1971,these bizarre dark electronic excursions didn't see the light of day until 1990,as the communist bloc was collapsing;but the rest of the recordings that never made it onto the album were rediscovered and are now included here as bonus tracks.Whoppeeeee.......now, where did I put those electrodes,and where are those cheap economic migrants I bought?

Tracklist:

1 –Oleg Buloshkin- Sacrament 3:34
2 –Sofia Gubaidulina - Vivente-Non Vivente (Alive & Dead) 10:44
3 –Edward Artemiev - Mosaic 4:00
4 –Edward Artemiev - 12 Looks At The World Of Sound 12:52
5 –Edison Denisov - Birds' Singing 5:05
6 –Alfred Schnittke - Steam 5:50
7 –Alexander Nemtin - Tears 4:41
8 –Alexander Nemtin - I. S. Bach: Choral Prelude C-dur 2:30
9 –Schandor Kallosh - Northern Tale 5:38
10 –Stanislav Kreitchi - Voices Of The West 2:00
11 –Edward Artemiev Music From The Motion Picture "Cosmos" 12:15
12 –Stanislav Kreitchi - Intermezzo 2:00

DOWNLOAD or you may accidently fall off a balcony HERE!

Iván Patachich ‎– "Musical Electro-Alchemy" (Hungaroton ‎– SLPX 12369) 1982

As this blog was initially about how to turn musical Lead into musical Gold,or vice-versa, the 'electro-alchemy' of another very serious Hungarian seems out of place, when you compare it to anything on 'Fuck Off Records',but they do share the same determination to get their very unpopular works into the hearing appendages of a few hundred members of the public.Apart from that I've ran out of UK DIY stuff,so i gott write about something,no matter how tenuous the link.
This,one has to say, 'Fantastic' record melts haunting  neo classical choirs with Kluster style narration in a foreign language....unless you're Hungarian of course.....and ......here's the electro bit....minimal electronic noise.
This would have made a great soundtrack for "Solaris 2" if anyone had the guts, or stupidity to try making such a bold attempt at the only good movie with a "2" at the end of the title.
Failing that, get a bunch of contemporary dancers and leave them to it.The results should be hilarious.

Tracklist:

1 Antifonák(1977) 9:30
2 Hivó Jelek(1977) 10:05
3 Ballade(1976) 5:00
4 Ludus Syntheticus(1977) 8:00
5 Kínai Templom Visszhanggal(1979) 8:12
6 Hommage À L'Électronique(1978) 9:24

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Edward M. Zajda ‎– "Independent Electronic Music Composer" (Ars Nova Ars Antiqua Recordings ‎– AN-1006) 1969

Lets take a break from the Iron Curtain,and look into the do it yourself electronic world of an ordinary American....albeit with a Polish name. 
Inspired by Cage, Zajda decided to build himself an electronic studio around 1962.The first in Chicago, and proceeded to record a massive output of one album,and this is it.
Nothing innovative here,the usual bleeps and farts, but ,as ever in the USA, it has a more listenable ,slightly more commercial edge;and even more american is that no-one bought it and we never heard of Edward M. Zajda ever again.Probably had to sell his studio at an incredible loss to pay off his debts for producing the album. This is why there's so much Early Electronica springing from socialist environments;you wouldn't lose your appartment in Hungary if your record bombs.


Tracklist:

A1 Study No. 10
A2 In March For Ann
A3 Points
B1 Magnificent Desolation
B2 Study No. 3

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Various Artists ‎– "From Czech Electronic Music Studios" (Supraphon ‎– 1 11 1423) 1974

If ever there was a soundtrack to life in a police state then this is it. On State Label Supraphon, with cover art from some twisted nightmarish detention centre inmate after a long spell of sleep deprivation, this musique concréte escapade emits all the joylessness of a lifetime spent under curfew.
Largely involving tape manipulation,and thankfully lacking access to the Soviet Union's state-owned EMS synthi 100 in Moscow, the edited and varispeeded recorded sounds have all the characteristics of a fully furnished subterranean dungeon in Prague.
Each new track is like an interrogator saying "Let's Go back to the Beginning",as it seems we've been here before but still aren't any wiser as to what you did last summer,especially as every day feels like winter.Music that'll make you admit to anything to avoid the 'Bath of Shit' part of the afternoon.Nothing's worth that illegally imported pair of jeans you purchased from that under-cover policeman last July.
Most of Czechoslavakia's prog rock fraternity were locked up in the same interrogation centre that this stuff evokes,but you could get away with it if you achieved the status of of 'Official Musician'. Without the nod from the State you weren't allowed to play music to a paying audience,if at all.Anything 'western' or subversive was an arrestable offence; as the Zappa-esque Plastic People Of The Universe found out. 
The composers of these creepy early electronic cattle prod-a-gogo instruments of aural torture,were,of course, possessors of pieces of paper that allowed them the distinction of being official 'State Composers', so they were safe in their state provided accomodation.....undoubtedly bugged,but its a rent controlled roof over one's head, where subversive thoughts could be encrypted into indecipherable weird noises and passed off as 'Avant-Garde'.


Tracklist:

1 –Zbyněk Vostřák - Scales Of Light (1967) 13:55
2 –Miloslav Ištvan - Isle Of Toys (1968) 9:25

Two Parts From The Kinetic Ballet (1968)

3 –Václav Kučera - The Labyrinth 14:00
4 –Václav Kučera - The Spiral 7:35

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Various ‎Artists – "Magyar Elektronikus Zene: Hungarian Electronic Music" (Hungaroton ‎– SLPX 11851) 1979

Oh Those Hungarians and their weird Iron curtain ways,and their kerazzzzy christian names like.....er.....Peter!!!?.....two Peters in fact.Theres a Peter Winkler on here,surely no relation to Fonz legend Henry I trust? Anything's possible in the world of avant garde Electronic music,even a 'Happy Days' connection.Despite the music summoning enough power through discomfort to rename this shit TV series as "Unhappy Days"
I'm relieved to say that the other names are far more in the malevolent dictator realm,like Ivan, and the previously discussed Zoltan......wasn't that the hound of Dracula's name?
The...er.....'music', is suitably castle dungeon in it's homeliness.
The odd appearance of The Soup Dragon from the Clangers,in Zoltan's work,place the evil one head and shoulders above his compatriots,although its all jolly sinister.Evoking empty space,lonliness and fear amongst the moist cloisters of a vampire's mountain top chateau.A Hungarian 'Trump Tower',but with taste.

Tracklist:

A1 –Zoltán Pongrácz - Mariphonia(1972) 8:07
A2 –Zoltán Pongrácz - Egy Cisz-Dur Akkord Története (1975) 5:48
A3 –Peter Eötvös - Mese: Rövidített Változat (1968) 12:18
B1 –Iván Patachich - Magánhangzók: Ta Fonaenta (1976) 8:06
B2 –Iván Patachich - Hangzó Függvények (1975) 10:37
B3 –Máté Victor & Péter Winkler - Viscositas (1975) 5:12

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Zoltán Pongrácz ‎– "144 Sounds: Electronic Music" (Hungaroton ‎– SLPX 12433) 1982

Most Hungarians have names that are later used for the character of an Evil God in cheapo kids fantasy cartoon series'. Zoltan , the bringer of pestilence,with a few of those weird Hungarian Dogs straining on the end of some chain heavy leash. One day Zoltan hopes to compete at 'Crufts',but for now he'll make do with just doing evil.Keep it simple Zolt.
This Zoltan makes evil sounding neo-classical electronics,complete with the barking hounds of Zoltan. Not the type of Electronics anyone can do mind....there's some craft to Mr. Pongrácz's electronic compositions. Sound effects as music, this most certainly is not! There's dark and light shading, and lots of stagey Hungarian monologues,in the style of those early Kluster albums (get them here and here). Again, I dunno what the voice is going on about,and I don't wanna know, it invariably lessens the mystery. I avoided seeing pictures of Joy Division, and I avoid translations of dark foreign language solioquies, to maintain the enigma.Nothing beats the perfection of the human imagination.
There's choirs too, like some Magyar version of the Omen.
Chimps could not make this,not even the infinate chimp,unlike the chumps who make that random knob twisting "I've got an expensive synth and you haven't" electronica' waving their Karl Heinz Stockhausen correspondence course certificate in your face mockingly,chanting "you don't understaaaand, you don't understaaand, nah nah n-nah naaaah!"


Tracklist:

A1 Madrigál 10:03
A2 144 Hang 12:00
B1 A Balgaság Dícsérete 18:26
B2 Sesquiatera 7:22

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Tom Dissevelt ‎– "Tom Dissevelt ‎– Fantasy in Orbit. Round the world with electronic music by Tom Dissevelt" ( Philips ‎– 633 302 BY) 1963

This could have been the Dr Who soundtrack that never was....in fact it never was a Dr Who soundtrack. Tom Dissevelt isn't as re-discovered as Delia Derbyshire, or as cute,or as tragic,so he's already struggling in the pathos stakes,as well as being compleatly forgotten until the early part of this century. that said, there isn't anything here to rival the 'Dr Who Theme' of the same year,so maybe he deserves to be in Delia's shadow.
There are, however,many similarities between the electronic concréte sound of Dissevelt and Derbyshire,which is unsurprising as they had virtually the same equipment.Although with the funding from Phillips for the Nat Lab, I guess Tom would have had the superior kit compared to what the BBC were likely to have provided the lovely Delia and chums at BBC Maida Vale.
Is this where Bowie nabbed his Major Tom character from?He was known to be a fan,and Tom was indeed the first Dutchman in space, albeit in sound only.


Tracklist:

1. Ignition
2. Atlantic
3. Spearheads
4. Zanzi
5. Anchor Chains
6. Tropicolours
7. Gamelan
8. Woomerangs
9. Waltzing Matilda
10. Pacific Dawn
11. Gold And Lead
12. Mexican Mirror
13. Seconds To Eternity
14. Re-entry

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Various Artists ‎– Anthology Of Dutch Electronic Tape Music: Volume 2 (1966-1977) (Composers' Voice ‎– CV 7903) 1979

They have funny names, wear clogs, take drugs openly,ride bicycles,have childrens stories about putting fingers into Dykes...and if that wasn't enough to recommend that you move to Holland, then how's about all this early electronic music then?
They're so liberal over there that all of this was probably state-funded. If the government did that in the USA the Rednecks would start lynchin' people of colour again,if they ever stopped?
There's something about all this early electronica that is far more disturbing that it's younger,trendier, sibling Industrial Music,which tried far too hard to be unsettling.This is the same as the difference between those scary movies where you saw nothing except what your own mind imagined,and shit yourself.Industrial Music was more like a Slasher move where nothing was left to the imagination. The human mind is capable of indescribable horrors,and this musique concrete stuff gives the mind the space it needs to create the terror of real life,or rather reveal the terror of real life. 
Fucking Hell, we're all gonna die!?Why wasn't I TOLD!!!?


Tracklist:

1 –Jacob Cats - Cadence-1 6:10
2 –Tera De Marez Oyens - Safed 7:33
3 –Jos Kunst - Extérieur 9:39
4 –Gilius Van Bergeijk - D.E.S 7:46
5 –Frans Van Doorn - Minnuet 9:05
6 –Thomas Arras - A.B.C. 8:33
7 –Simeon Ten Holt - I Am Sylvia 15:30
8 –Victor Wentink - Discours 13:20
9 –Louis Andriessen - In Memoriam 5:06
10 –Peter Smith - Étude-1 8:58
11 –Tony Van Campen - Sintering 9:55

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Various Artists ‎– "Anthology Of Dutch Electronic Tape Music: Volume 1 (1955-1966)" (Composers' Voice ‎– CV 7803) 1978

On a purely Intellectual note to start off with......TeeHeeHeeeee......His name is Hans Kox...titter titter! Fnar Fnar Kyuk Kyuk!
Well, Hans off yer Kox now,and lets get serious.....Nah!
Like everywhere else,the Dutch think they invented Electronic music,and one has to say,they were pretty close to having a point.
The origin of Electronic music is almost as tiresome an argument as who invented Punk Rock.....but in Punk Rocks' case it was quite clearly England, Not Detroit,Not New York,Not Scotland...England,gottit?
As for coherent electronic composition, it seems,on the whole, to be a French thing, although it turns out that Daphne Oram of the BBC may have trumped Pierre Shaeffer,but it was kept traditionally  Hush Hush in that understated British way.We don't like show-offs over there  y'know?
One thing that the Dutch are world class at however, is Funny Names.

Hans Kox .....gaffaw gaffaw. laff laff!

Tracklist:

Studio Of The Netherlands Radio Union
A1 –Hans Kox - Three Pieces For Electronic Organ 3:48
A2 –Ton De Leeuw - Study 6:47
Studio Of Delft Technical University
A3 –Jan Boerman - Musique Concrète 3:04
A4 –Jaap Spek - Impulses 7:58
A5 –Rudolf Escher - The Long Christmas Dinner 6:15
Philips Studio
B1 –Henk Badings - Cain And Abel 8:57
B2 –Dick Raaijmakers - Piano-Forte 4:56
B3 –Ton De Leeuw - Antiphonie 15:17
Studio Of Utrecht University
C1 –Frits C. Weiland - Studie In Lagen En Impulsen 4:46
C2 –Hans Kox - Cyclophonie III 7:33
C3 –Tom Dissevelt - Fantasy In Orbit 3:05
C4 –Axel Meijer - Werkstuk-1964 2:32
C5 –Robbert Jan De Neeve - A.F. 1:17
C6 –Peter Schat - De Aleph 7:46
Studio Of Ton Bruynèl
D1 –Ton Bruynèl - Reflexen 4:34
CEM Studio, Bilthoven
D2 –Will Eisma - BTH. 3457 4:08
D3 –Klaus Gorter - K 45 5:40
D4 –Luctor Ponse - Etude-I 6:19
D5 –Berend Giltay - Polychromie-I 6:42

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Karel Appel ‎– "Musique Barbare" (WVB ‎– 99954 DL) 1963

On the theme of electronic Apples,where we heard 'Silver Apples of the Moon',then experienced the lost and found proto-electronic duo 'The Siver Apples';now we have a mad Dutch Painter called Karel Appel!?
Let's face it, artists are a bunch of self-aggrandizing attention seeking twats. And Dutch Abstract expressionist, forward slash, action painter,Karel Appel, was certainly one of them.
Lack of attention as a child leading to low self-esteem issues has a lot to answer for.....Hitler for one.....and Karel takes his anger out on, mostly, canvas;but,that's not enough for him is it?...Oh no...he has to enter the confusing world of Musique Concréte,applying his action painting techniques to magnetic tape.

Karel approach to tape splicing was,how do you say?...er...unique?

Looking like Captain Haddock on angel-dust, our wooly jumper wearing Art Nutter somehow managed to produce one of the most extreme and uncompromising sonic assaults the world has ever heard.No its not a colla-bore-ation with Merzbow from 2007, this was done at the same time those ground-breaking mop tops were singing nursery rhymes like 'Love Me Do' at the top of the UK hit parade.....in 1963?

Captain Haddock unleashed in the Dutch verion of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

The opening piece.....artists call tracks, 'Pieces'by the way....sounds not unlike a Carl Stalling composed soundtrack to a Looney Toons cartoon,zipping and darting,spontaneously, in all random directions.Which, without the coreography of a Warner Brothers cartoon, could send a an unprepared mind insane . I'm guessing he approached the tape edit like an action painting,randomly sticking pieces together, and randomly attacking the studio piano. It would make a great backing track to an experimental eastern european cartoon.
But its when Karel starts to vocalize that it really gets certifiable. Section 8 stuff,probably used to get himself out of Dutch National Service after the war. Repeating the phrase "I Do Not Paint I Hate" over and over again,increasingly manically,accompanied by a prepared tape and wild phonetic drumming.
The final track...er...'piece',find our hero let loose on the drums again, whilst attacking a vox continental. This, The Beatles,it is NOT!

Appel doing his day job......artists call it working!?“I paint like a savage – because we live in savage times.” Said Karel, Another favourite quote of the formidable painter was “I merely muck about”...well,he said it not me!?

He never made another record.

Tracklist:

1.Paysage Électronique (11:41)
2.Poème Barbare (3:30)
3.Le Cavalier Blanc (12:42)

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