Skeleton Crew ‎– "Learn To Talk" (Recommended Records ‎– rm 02) 1984

Improvisers always end up playing with each other,and effortlessly turn out composed pieces to show that they can do it too, if they wanted.
Luckily for us ,'The Listening Public', Fred frith and Tom Cora decided to make us this Avant-pop classic.The virtuosity,the difficult ever changing time signatures,and mental ward vocals, do not distract from the greatness of this record.Like a cross between XTC and Egg, its the kind of prog-pop that could have hit some charts a few years earlier.

Tracklist:

1 Que Viva/Onwards And Upwards 7:37
2 The Way Things Fall (Back Apart) 2:36
3 Not My Shoes 2:14
4 The Washington Post 1:28
5 We're Still Free 4:16
6 Victoryville 2:43

7 Los Colitos/Life At The Top 4:35
8 Learn To Talk 3:40
9 Factory Song 5:13
10 It's Fine 4:22
11 Zach's Flag 3:10

12 Sick as a Parrot 2:58

13 Automatic Pilot 1:27

14 Hook 2:15

15 Killing Time 2:26

DOWNLOAD and learn to decompress HERE!

Fraser ‎– "Archaeology" (Anti Hero Records ‎– AH 008) 1989

The lost album from the Unrest,Work and Play archives wot I found on the interweb in an atrociously low bit-rate, but its still not too bad compared to some of the cassettes that are on here.
Its basically a solo album by Chris Fraser of UWP, but sounds exactly like said group.
If you don't know what 'said group' sounds like click here.
In words, disjointed Avant-Prog songs sung in a post-psychedelic style that was quite typical of the groups on Recommended Records.So don't expect melodies that have predictable sequences, or conform to 4/4 verse chorus verse standards.
Seems that Chris disappeared after this obscure magnum opus.

Tracklist:

A1 Archaeology
A2 Everything Looks Different
A3 Steep Descent
A4 Customs
A5 Clear
B1 Pointless
B2 Where And When
B3 0119
B4 Cellarman
B5 Misconstrued

DOWNLOAD from the avant-prog archaeological dig 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!

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!

The Black Sheep ‎– "Alive In Beograd" (Nikad Robom ‎– 007) 1987

To end this long list of Recommended Records related acts, we have The Black sheep, featuring (surprise,surprise) Chris Cutler on the drum kit.Their chaotic act is caught in action Live in Beograd,Belgrade, in very acoustically raw lo-fi. Sounding a lot like a hybrid of a drunk Derek Bailey fronting The Shaggs and an even drunker Henry Cow, they churn out a set of songs that get demolished before our very ears. If this is Prog rock, its very deprogrammed Prog, almost No Wave in its disregard for conventional musical forms. DNA and Mars are closer comparisons than Barclay James Harvest . Tunes are either totally absent,or submerged beneath a cacophony of detuned strumming,and fractured rhythms. Not represented very much on record, I presume they concentrated on live work , hence this bootlegged concert from the Former Yugoslavian republic of Serbia, when it was still Yugoslavia, and Tito was either recently dead, or still alive. Either way, an interesting choice of venue, a couple of years before members of this audience,probably, started shooting each other in the civil war ; and “ethnic cleansing” was yet to enter the dictionary. Somehow this ensuing chaos is represented ,channelled, in the Black sheep sound, alive in Belgrade, 1987.

This reminds me of a funny story featuring Arkan, the murdering Serbian warlord and Football fan/Hooligan. My inherited Football team allegiance, is one Leicester City FC; and in 1998 we drew Red Star Belgrade in the UEFA cup. We sent our firm of Hooligans (The baby Squad) over there to meet notorious Red Star supporters and hardened paramilitary genocidal maniacs, Arkan's'Tigers'.When faced with various heavy military ordinance, like automatic weaponry and grenade launchers, the Squad turned and tactically retreated rather quickly.

"Come and 'ave a go if you think you're 'ard enuff!"

A charming quote from Marco,one of the 'Tigers' as reported in the Guardian will demonstrate what loveable chaps these pricks are:
"We organise the best choreography in the world. We're not just hooligans; we are ready for anything. For example, we showed those English homosexuals from Leicester how to fight a few years ago. We met them in the UEFA Cup and ran them in Leicester and again when we met up with them later in the year in Germany. We think that in England you don't realise how tough the Serbs are. We respect the English as the founders of hooliganism, but where are you now? Other nations have overtaken you.'.....(uh?)
Arkan, when interviewed by the BBC, was asked who his favourite English Premier League Team was? He broke into stifled laughter and answered, in his thick Serbian accent, “Lei-cester City!....their fans ran away like girls!”

Well, the cunt was murdered a year or so later just before his war crimes trial(not by a member of the 'Baby Squad' I may add)......who's laughing now, Huh?

(ps...after posting, I received the wonderful experience of Leicester humbling Manchester United by 5 goals to 3,oh rapture!)

  

Tracklist:

A1		Raygun
A2		Favourite Shopping
A3		Power
A4		Ministry Of Truth
A5		President
A6		Multiply
B1		Slowmotion
B2		Rosa
B3		Work
B4		Goldfish

DOWNLOAD to stay alive in belgrade HERE! 
or
The Alternative DOWNLOAD to staying alive HERE!
or
Alive in Mediafire HERE! 

Art Bears ‎– "Winter Songs" (Rē Records ‎– Re 0618) 1979

On a sad day when Scotland voted NO for independence,and YES to the New World Order; I couldn't think of a Scottish band to post;but you can recheck The Prats and He's Dead Jim, 'cus they're good.

So here's another Chris Cutler group on Recommended Records instead( with Fred Frith, and Dagmar Krause). 

I was first drawn to them because they were on Ralph Records. Don't really have anything to say about this, except that it is the ambient reflection of the minds of the chin stroking types in 'Art' galleries; elitist, soul-less, cold, humourless, and intellectually intimidating. Pop this on when you want to appear 'Intellectual' to stupid people. Yes, a tad pretentious, but a cracking piece of work that wouldn't be out of place given an airing in some damp fusty crypt, or as a soundtrack to a funeral full of people the departed participant didn't like.

Tracklist:

A1	The Bath Of Stars
A2	First Things First
A3	Gold
A4	The Summer Wheel
A5	The Slave
A6	The Hermit
A7	Rats And Monkeys
B1	The Skeleton
B2	The Winter Wheel
B3	Man And Boy
B4	Winter / War
B5	Force
B6	3 Figures
B7	3 Wheels

 

DOWNLOAD some songs for a very bleak and austere winter 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 Homosexuals ‎– "The Homosexuals' Record" (Recommended Records ‎– RR 18) 1984

From the same fertile London Squats as This Heat, here's a band name to rival the Bathroom Renovations and Danny and the Dressmakers as 'best band name' ever. I wish i'd thought of it. The Homosexuals (and they were beaten up for it too), existed in London squatland from 1972, and recorded mostly to mono cassettes for themselves and friends. Hardly releasing anything in their lifetime, except a couple of singles and an e.p. between 1978 and 1982; this record collects the releases and selected highlights from the bucketload of cassettes they recorded. I prefer this collection to the 3cd astral Glamour set on Hyped2Death, as it cuts out the boring chaff and leaves the quality that this band were more than capable of, if they cared.Their angular guitars, complex melodies, and experimental leanings distanced them somewhat from the punk rock being created by their contemporaries, and has now cemented them as uk DIY legends. So much so that they(Bruno Wizard and backing band!) have now reformed and are touring.
Also the group members released various other records as various alias (which have be posted earlier on this blog), like L.Voag, Just Measurers , Amos and Sara, etc.
A reissue of the first single, 3 tracks from The Homosexuals EP, 6 songs* from the live-to-tape session at Surrey Sound that was one of the first things recorded there (You can tell which songs those are because of the awful distortion), 3 alternate mixes ** and Jim's wonderful "False Sentiments." Remastered by Bob Drake. Bruno's handsome mug appears on the cover courtesy of one of Suzy's videos... 
(Before any sad fucker mentions it, Yes, it's the CD version from 2003....yawn).

Track Listing:

1) My Night Out *
2) Technique Street *
3) Vociferous Slam (a different mix from the EP with some tape-wobble but many more effects) **
4) Soft South Africans "#1" (a previously-unreleased rough-mix) **
5) Neutron Lover *
6) A Million Keys *
7) Naming of Parts *
8) Kiss With Venom *
9) Divorce from Reality
10) Hearts in Exile (45 version)
11) All About Cheap
12) Soft South Africans (45 version)
13) False Sentiments
14) Mecho Madness (a radically different mix from the EP) **
15) Astral Glamour
16) The Birds Have Risen
17) Collapsible You (a longer, more dub-stye mix that turned up in Chris Cutler's unused tapes: the 3:45 original is on George Harrasment and AG)
18) Snapshots of Nairobi (instrumental: never released: there's also a live vocal version on Astral Glamour)
19) "Soft South Africans (raw)" Actually this is the original rough mix of "Hearts in Exile" with all the vocals and the three guitar-parts that Bruno faded out (in response to which Anton faded Bruno's vocals up-and-down, dub-style. This is the pre-mixing counterpart to the rough mix of "SSA" from the LP and it's an incredibly major "find" (It'll be on Astral Glamour, too, of course.)
20) Walk Before Imitate (from the Recommended 2LP sampler)
21) Still Living in My Car (from Venceremos)

DOWNLOAD the homosexuals' mp3 zip file HERE!