Sunday 12 January 2014

Ampnoise - " Beyond The Spectacle" (Self Release C-45) 1983

"Retro-futurism"....an oxymoron that describes this minimal wave underground classic very nicely. Obvious reference points can be used, such as Cabaret Voltaire and most of the Industrial records stable, but this has a charm of it's own, rather like a Sinclair spectrum computer; on the surface outdated crap, but dig deeper and you get something that exists out of time and the constraints of constantly advancing technology. Record this on a muddy sounding c-45 cassette and you have produced an object of great beauty.
There's no Moogs,Korgs, or Roland's on here, this is low budget and make do on the cheapest available equipment, and all the better for it. All popular brand names are a fast track to conformity....although i suspect i could hear a Boss Dr. Rythm DR55 in there somewhere....I had one of those once...bloody rubbish it was, highly recommended. Recorded on a Fostex x-15 multitrack cassette recorder, with its infamous Dolby -B sound muffler device, that was passed off as noise reduction, ending up being music reduction,sounded better with the tape hiss!
Although very little is known about the bedroom legends that produced this solid state marvel, but I am informed that Ampnoise comprised of two chaps called Robert Lawrence and Mark Phillips (the man behind the Quick Stab cassette label, and The Dada Computer album, who still make music today as  Five Ximes of dust?
Ampnoise also appeared on the ICR compilation " Integration" in 1983, providing the track "Floppy Disc Drive".
Link

Track Listing:

01 It's Very Simple
02 Syphilis
03 The Small Assassin
04 I.R.A. Death
05 666-23
06 Industry
07 Return Of the Horizontal Man
08 You Arouse My Animal Passions
09 Poison River
10 Geisha Children
11 Hologram
12 Psychic Operations
13 Crash
14 Even Programmes Fall In Love
15 Beyond The Spectacle

DOWNLOAD this spectacle and beyond HERE!

3 comments:

the saucer people said...

"Beyond The Spectacle" - I imagine they were doing the same as I was in 1983 - buying the wonderful Spectacular Times booklets from the late Larry Law.. or perhaps they were reading Guy Debord and Raoul Vaneigem texts in their original French - either way, kudos for the situationist reference decades before the current state of affairs where every annoying media student with intellectual pretensions will drop the word 'détournement' into a sentence.

Got my phone locked and loaded with the Robert Lawrence and Mark Phillips rips you have posted ready for tomorrow's bus journey on West Yorkshire's finest public transport... living the dream!

Jonny Zchivago said...

I think that if you say you are a situationist, you are, therefore, by definition, NOT a situationist?
The same applies to Punk ,but NOT to Punk Rock.
If this makes sense to you,then you ARE a situationist.....unless you say you are of course!

kevinesse said...

bzzzzz