Steve Treatment ‎– "25 "A" Sides + Your Friends Are In The News" (Hyped To Death ‎– Messthetics #202-203) 2003

One of the shiniest failures from East Midlands also-ran City, Derby (pronounced Darby for you americans!),was the legend in his own lunchtime himself, Steve Treatment.More famed as playing Amyl Nitrate in Derek Jarmans' artsy fartsy 'Punk' movie, "Jubilee". 
Every shit town has someone who struts around as if they were a 'star', in this case Steve strutted around Derby thinking he was Marc Bolan. Ironically his career started the year Marc's ended as his Mini slammed into a tree and killed our curly topped chum instantly.
Maybe his soul transported itself into young Steven?
Not shy at donning some glossy lipstick and a cape, Steve ran away to London, buddied up with fellow midlands refugees, Swell Maps, and started to churn out lots of DIY Glam pop songs to a very disinterested capital city.
Steve said that all of his songs were 'A'-sides. He wasn't far off in that claim, they were at least B-side material, maybe even 'C'-side standard. As it turned out most of his recordings never got the chance to be on any side of a record, never mind the 'A' or 'B' side of anything.
He managed to produce three chirpy 7" singles, one on Swell Maps' 'Rather Records', who played back-up on his early recordings.
Lots of chung-a-chung-a guitar work, meandering echo-laden  council estate T-Rex-isms a plenty, but, there is a certain charm about the late Mr Treatment's fortitude in his belief that he was obviously a star, no matter what anybody else says......as the great beast  Aliester Crowley once said...."Every Man Every woman Is a Star".....I can't argue with that.

140+ minutes of unglamorous  DIY'n'roll including all of Steve's singles (1977-1979), plus later highlights of his incredibly colorful career, including almost all of the songs that were headed for Steve's never to be released LP. 

RIP ST.

Tracklist:

25 "A" Sides

1-1 Danger Zone 1:41
1-2 Taste Your Own Medicine 2:27
1-3 Negative Nights 2:19
1-4 The Hippie Posed Engrossment 1:37
1-5 Hooked On A Trend 1:27
1-6 Step Inside A Worn-Out Shoe 3:21
1-7 Heaven Knows (Juvenile Wrecks) 2:11
1-8 Change Of Plan 2:35
1-9 Head Of A Raven 2:23
1-10 Chosen To Go 1:46
1-11 Tempest Fashion Baby 2:00
1-12 Cry In Alphabet Sharp 2:17
1-13 Carve My Name Upon My Back 7:15
1-14 Temperature Change (The World Is A Slag) 4:29
1-15 Ingrowing Toenail 2:48
1-16 You're Going To Receive Treatment 2:52
1-17 Disillusioned Writer On The Basement Floor Of Love 6:08
1-18 New Youth Society Generator 5:58
1-19 Yeah Yeah 2:23
1-20 Boy Of 14 0:47
1-21 The Hippie Posed Engrossment II 1:41
1-22 Hooked On A Trend II 1:19
1-23 Negative Nights II 2:10
1-24 Danger Zone II 2:13
1-25 All Dressed For Tomorrow 3:09

DOWNLOAD and get the A-sides HERE!

Your Friends Are In The News

2-26 Wild And Sparkle 4:05
2-27 Ignorant Eyes 3:24
2-28 New Youth Society Generator 3:27
2-29 Your Friends Are In The News 2:09
2-30 Hangman 4:35
2-31 All Dressed For Tomorrow 6:06
2-32 It Was Good While It Lasted 7:09
2-33 Pavement Stones 93 3:57
2-34 Carve My Name Upon Your Back 3:20
2-35 Cabinet Of Disciples 8:30
2-36 Calendar Karmi 4:35
2-37 The World Is Blue 5:03
2-38 Seven Day Psalm 1:56
2-39 It Was Good While It Lasted 7:08
2-40 I Hate Reunions 3:23
2-41 Echo In The Backstreet 4:14
2-42 Sparkle Introduction

DOWNLOAD and get something besides the a-sides HERE!

Swell Maps - "Outtakes, Rehearsals, and Lots of Live Stuff" (1977-1980)

Now that we've scraped a large hole in the bottom of the barrel of the Swell Maps home recordings répertoire.....er...there's more?
Here we've got another version of 'Harmony In Your Bathroom',some early rehearsal tapes, some farting about in WRMS studios during the Marineville sessions,a complete live set from a gig in Aylesbury and the obligatory bedroom recording.

Track Listing:

1. 14th Floor (2:43)
2. Forest Fire (2:59)
3. Harmony In Your Bathroom (Alt Take) (3:47)
4. Live In Aylesbury Sept 1979 (40:16)
5. Marineville Outtakes 1 (5:14)
6. Marineville Outtakes 2 (6:32)
7. Marineville Outtakes 3 (3:55)
8. Marineville Outtakes 4 (8:58)
9. Rehearsal  July 1977  (14:55)

DOWNLOAD before the barrel is emptied HERE!

Also for the sake of complete and utter overkill, here's a couple of Swell Maps gigs from back in the day.....what more do you want?

Live in Italy June 1980

Live Aklam Hall,London 20/10/1978

Enjoy?

Swell Maps ‎– "Train Out Of It" (Antar ‎– ANTAR 4) 1987

The growing cult of Swell Maps in America required the Godfrey brothers (Epic and Nikki), to go back into the Maps archives and produce another album of out-takes, demo's and alternative takes.
They won't be doing this again because they are both dead!?....fucking hell is no-one excluded from this mortal paradox?....what?....I'm gonna die too????....you're having a laugh aren't you?.....SHIT!
I suppose this is a rock'n'roll version of Schrödinger's cat?
In the world of Rock'n'Roll Quantum mechanics they're both alive while dead at the same time; as long as you don't look. So listen to this, and we're all gonna live for ever.Even when we're dead.....as long as nobody checks.
Even better, in the quantum world it will always be both 1979 and 2018 at the same time,depending on no-one being stupid enough to tell us it isn't.
Another problem is that 1979 and 2018 are the musical equivalent of Matter and Anti-matter;so if they ever came in contact with each other they would annihilate themselves!!?...so be careful upon exposing the primordial brilliance that is/was/will be Swell Maps to the polluted air of the modern world, where even the slightest exposure to modern pop music could cause a very real and actual death of your brain......annihilation! 

Track 1: recorded at W.M.R.S. - June 1979.
Track 2: recorded at W.M.R.S. - April 1979.
Track 3: recorded at Spaceward - December 1977.
Track 4: recorded at W.M.R.S. - December 1978.
Track 5: recorded at W.M.R.S. - June 1979.
Track 6: recorded at W.S.R.S. - August 1984.
Track 7: recorded at home - June 1981.
Track 8: recorded at W.S.R.S. - December 1981.
Track 9: recorded at W.M.R.S. - July 1981.
Track 10: recorded at W.S.R.S. - August 1984.
Track 11: recorded at Alvic Sound Studio - May 1981.
Track 12: recorded at home - July 1977.
Track 13: recorded at home - March 1980/June 1981.
Track 14: recorded at home - 1973-1984.
Track 15: recorded at W.M.R.S. - Dec. 1978/June 1980.
Track 16: recorded at W.M.R.S. - December 1978.
Track 17: recorded at Spaceward - September 1977.
Track 18: recorded at W.M.R.S. - December 1978.
Track 19: recorded at home - February 1975.
Track 20: recorded at home - July 1977.
Track 21: recorded at W.S.R.S. - August 1984/May 1986.
Track 22: recorded at home - September 1975/March 1980.
Track 23: recorded at W.S.R.S. - October 1981.
Track 24: recorded at home/Alvic Sound Studio Aug 1980/May 1981.
Track 25: recorded at W.S.R.S. - September 1981.
Track 26: recorded at home/W.S.R.S. - June/September 1981.

Tracklisting:

01 Let's Build A Car 2:58
02 Real Shocks 2:16
03 Read About Seymour 1:27
04 Full Moon 1:18
05 Big Maz In The Country 3:30
06 St. Saviour's Road 1:30
07 Doomette 1:00
08 The Graveyard Shift 3:40
09 ...Then Poland (Pts. 1 & 2) 1:05
10 Blues No. 2: Beatle Bonfire 1:46
11 A Three Acre Floor 3:00
12 C.R.S. 5:04
13 Clear The Floor 2:15
14 The Cave Dwellers 0:48
15 Dresden Style 2:20
16 Ammunition Train 3:29
17 Black Velvet 1:57
18 Doctor At C. 2:06
19 Elephant Flowers 0:58
20 Stitch 2:35
21 Rundown Tube 2:50
22 Texas 1:45
23 Blues No. 1: Garden Of Medals 1:35
24 Pop In Packets 1:43
25 Tokyo Airport 2:07
26 Bridge/Ghost Train 8:10

DOWNLOAD and get out of it HERE!

Swell Maps - "Wastrels And Whippersnappers" - (Overground Records ‎– OVER108VPCD) 2006

What did young men do in their bedrooms in the pre-punk seventies?

No X-Box back then, no free internet porn, and there was only one TV in the house, in the lounge, with three channels only.

The answer lies right here, on this posthumous scraping of the seemingly bottomless barrel of archive Swell Maps recordings.

I can't hear enough versions of "Harmony In Your Bathroom" can you?

But where the hell is Dorridge?.....just googled it....I knew they were posh!It's virtually in the Cotswolds. Was always suspicious of their lack of a Brummie accent, and easy access to recording equipment, drum kits,amps and electric guitars.They were even heard referring to the 'Barth-room' rather than 'bathroom' like us normal midlanders did.There was one kid in my school who ecspectorated  the rounded vowel sounds of 'Grahss' for 'Grass', and 'Barth' for 'bath', and he went on to become a Tory candidate for the House of Fools (commons);which I'm almost certain Swell Maps never stooped to.

"All tracks recorded at various garages, bedrooms and lounges in Solihull and Dorridge, West Midlands, between 1974-1977." 

Tracklisting:

Intro / Sweet And Sour Part 2 0:12
Dresden Style 2:18
Pets' Corner 2:20
Shubunkin 1:07
Sahara 2:09
Full Moon-Blam-Full Moon 4:16
Instronaut 2:00
Televisions 2:52
Wireless 4:00
Harmony In Your Bathroom 4:21
Camoflage Attack 2:17
Gramofonica 1:40
Harvist 1:28
Johnny Seven 1:27
Sweet And Sour (Parts 2, 3 & 4) 3:24
Sheep Police / Septipede 3:34
Improv Number One 1:53
Platinum Blind 1:00
God Save The Queen 0:30
Ratbag And Goblin ('Batman' Theme) 1:28
Vertical Slumber (Prototype Take 1) 1:42
Below Number One 3:37
Organism 1:25

DOWNLOAD to your barthroom HERE!

Jandek ‎– "What Was Out There Disappeared" (Corwood Industries ‎– Corwood 0799) 2009

It's Monday.....so that must mean......????
Yup, Jandek wants to fuck you up.
On this selection, the pied-piper of negativity leads our children into a world of permanent autumn, or is that autism?
If Jandek isn't on the Asperger side of the Autistic spectrum, I'll eat my record collection.
There's something in Jandek, I think, that most of us,who can bare to listen for more than 30 seconds, can identify with. I too have had my long periods of voluntary isolation.Awkwardness in the public arena.Expressing oneself through the medium of sound,whilst being so obscure ,its pointless making any product,......but whats that got to do with you lot? How dare you read this?......basically who gives a flying one?
In this episode of moaning and howling over a never-tuned guitar, playing ,seemingly, completely random notes; our Aspergers-chic troubadour, complains about going to 'Edinboro' ,and I don't blame him. Then threatens to stop taking photographs of himself.....in fact, most of those hundreds of album cover photo's have obviously been taken by a third party.Did he ever tell us he was actually a loner, or am I reading between the lines?There was the mysterious chanteuse called Nancy who appeared on a few lp's in the 1980's after all? Is this an 'Outsider Rock'n'Roll swindle'?......not too keen to learn the truth, as I always prefer the myth to the bland reality. I don't wanna know who the Residents are! I don't wanna read about behind the scenes in the Trout Mask replica house! Or who 'Banksy' is!?....but the fucking Internet will make sure you find out. What is it about the Human character that craves turning everything colourful into magnolia woodchip wall paper,like a dog who rips its favourite ball to pieces. Who really would give a fuck if we ever found out what happened to the Marie Celeste's crew? Unsolvable mysteries are a human right that is being snatched away from us, along with everything else that makes life magical.
Jandek is one of those enigma's.
Yes,even after he started appearing in concert too.

Tracklist:

1 Going To Edinburgh 8:14
2 Girls Wore Gowns 5:13
3 Will There Be No More Photos 14:30
4 Your Eyes 6:18
5 Broken Leaves 5:54
6 Jumping Off 5:23
7 Painstakingly Critical 4:39
8 Lucky Cat 7:03

DOWNLOAD before it disappears HERE!

Swell Maps ‎– "Whatever Happens Next..." (Rough Trade ‎– ROUGH 21, Rather Records ‎– ROUGH 21) 1981

We've been to Nuneaton, then Coventry, so logic dictates the next destination must be Birmingham. Once compared to an empty rugby players bath.....nothing in the centre with a ring of scum around the outside.
Rather harsh,but was once very true. Britains second city was an example of urban planning gone wrong. A nightmarish vision of damp concrete built on a minuscule budget.Skirted by the crumbling M6 motorway,and home to the silliest highway interchange in europe, nick-named 'Spaghetti Junction'.
Basically it was shit.
Despite this depressing environment, Birmingham is responsible for some of the most influential names in classic rock, namely Black Sabbath,Judas Priest,Napalm Death and most of Led Zeppelin. Not to mention such greats as Slade, The Move, Moody Blues, ELO, The Nightingales,....erm....Duran Duran!??.....and Swell Maps.
Swell Maps were DIY before DIY,with cassette recordings stretching back to 1974. So after their premature demise in 1980, it was inevitable that Rough Trade would release some of them , which they prompotly did on this double album from 1981.
If, by some chance you have lived in a closet for the last 40 years, you can hear Swell Maps official releases and peel sessions by clicking this handy link HERE!

"The majority of these recordings were made on various (mono & stereo) cassette machines at home. They are all in their original forms, apart from some editing, except 'Midget Submarines (Sd. 1) on which we added some piano and extra voices."

A1, A2 rec. April 77
A3 rec. April 75
A4, A5 rec. June 77
A6 rec. Dec 78
A7 rec. Jan 79
A8 rec. live at the Titan Club, Rome in March 1980
B1 rec. July 77
B2 to B4 rec. August 77
C1 rec. Dec 75 / June 77
C2 rec. May 77
C3 rec. June 74
C4 rec. July 77 / Dec 77
D1 rec. April 74
D2 rec. at the start of sessions for 'Jane From Occupied Europe' at WMRS, Leamington Spa., June 79
D3 to D7 rec. at Swell Maps' 2nd John Peel Session, May 79
Tracklist:

A1 Read About Seymour
A2 Fashion Cult
A3 Armadillo
A4 (I Am) The Greatest Plumming! / Radio Ten
A5 Here's The Cupboard (Thrash)
A6 Terribly Insect
A7 Midget Submarines
A8 Whatever Happens Next...
B1 Clearasil Record (Stuck)
B2 BLAM!!
B3 Down With Tractors
B4 Amphibious Landing Craft
C1 Paul's Dead (click here for this missing track from the file!)
C2 Sheep Dip
C3 Havoc All Ended
C4 The Himalayas
D1 You & The Night & The Music
D2 The Stairs Are Like An Avalanche
D3 Vertical Slum
D4 Forest Fire
D5 Midget Submarines (II)
D6 Armadillo (II)
D7 Bandits One Five

DOWNLOAD and see what happens HERE!

Digital Dinosaurs ‎– "Extinction: 1979-82" (Hyped 2 Death ‎– Messthetics #207) 2003

Up the road a bit from Nuneaton, at the scene of Hitlers greatest atrocity of bombing Coventry flat and unleashing a wave of evil British Modernist architects on the survivors; we find UK DIY's version of the Kinks. Among the concrete flyovers,tower blocks and empty office spaces, somehow a group of young hippies spent their empty evenings writing dozens of underground pop songs and releasing them on cassettes. After-all, Coventry was famously the subject of The Specials number one hit "Ghostown", so patently there wasn't much else to do. The architects had conveniently forgot about people when they made their technical drawings.
Music from Coventry seemed to be a form of escape rather than reflecting their unfortunate urban situation,unlike in Manchester. They had to make their own entertainment and alternative reality, so we got the Two Tone thing (yuk), and The Digital Dinosaurs (Hooray). Even their football team were reflective of a a pointless struggle, constantly finishing a season one point away from relegation for thirty years in a row!......thankfully they were finally relegated,and are to this day languishing in the lower leagues.
The Digital Dinosaurs were always in the lower leagues of musical sucess, but are now slowly gaining recognition as fine exponents of the lost art of British Melodic Pop .
This collection cherry picks tracks from their early cassettes, and there's a couple of previously unreleased ones for good measure.(get more Dinosaurs HERE)

Tracklist:

1 Red Fire Engine 1:33
2 Fingers & Thumbs II 4:07
3 Dinosaurs And Giants (Too Many Tigers) 2:37
4 The Oldest Girl 3:08
5 The Sideways Man 2:23
6 Dessert Island Risks 4:50
7 Eyes Front 3:31
8 Have You Seen The Saucers? 3:21
9 Lost In Stars 2:50
10 Mars Telephone 3:12
11 Who'd Be A Turkey 3:31
12 Mesmerelda 2:35
13 Screaming Old Woman (On A Bicycle) 4:11
DOWNLOAD to save from extinction HERE!

Kevin Harrison ‎– "Fly" (Glass Records ‎– GLASS 017) 1982

Kevin wants a hit, so the tried and trusted method of appealing to the feet rather than the brain is employed.
The result is some low budget white man's disco that I hope they had a laugh making.
I notice an errant 'Special' is listed as playing bass on this,as in 1982 he had nothing better to do I suppose.
The third track could have been a filler on a later Cluster album or Ash Ra goes disco.

DOWNLOAD and uzip the fly HERE!

Kevin Harrison ‎– "Tape-Recordings 1975-1985" (Vinyl-on-demand ‎– VOD145.B1.KH) 2016

A compilation from the archives of Kevin Harrison.
Kevin's usual brand of combining Cluster with Ash Ra via Frippertronics is largely in evidence here.
Its kinda timeless, except that nowadays we'd call the track 'Vapour Trails' 'Chem-Trails' for various and imaginative reasons.....won't go on a rant because its too silly.Yes they are still made from water vapour,but try telling that to a Flat-Earther and see how long it is before they tell you to 'Wake Up'! Oh the Irony!?.....this kind of made up fear mongering fake shite is why we now have Trump holding our fate in his tiny orange hands.

DOWNLOAD before the depopulation chemical spraying jets get you HERE!

Kevin Harrison ‎– "Inscrutably Obvious" (Cherry Red ‎– BRED 16) 1981

Cherry Red seemed intent on signing up everyone in Nuneaton.So, Kevin Harrison got his chance to foist his revamped version of his "Earth2" cassette from 1980 on the public,and called it "Inscrutably Obvious".
It's a very krautrocky, minimalist electronic offering, which reminds one of fellow Coventry area electronicists "Sea Of Wires", and of proto-house cosmic guitar legend,kraut, Manuel Gottsching's mid-seventies albums,or Achim Reichel; with a large splash of Frippertronics.

Tracklist:

A1 The Cantonese Detective Agency
A2 Some Aspect Of Music
A3 All Night Long
A4 Wooden Heartthrob Of Peking
A5 Chase The Dragon
A6 The Word
A7 Cyclotron
A8 Water
A9 Take It Away
B1 Flicker
B2 Stretch / 1
B3 Stretch / 2
B4 Horizontal / Diagonal (Live At Nags Head Nuneaton)
B5 M0903A
B6 Melodica Melodica
B7 People In Space
B8 Free-Float

DOWNLOAD HERE! obviously!

Kevin Harrison ‎– "Spectro Verdu Est Mort?" (Glass Records ‎– GLASSMC 015) 1981

Every East Midlands town has a local musical hero called 'Kevin' haven't they? Leicester has Kevin Hewick at least anyway......Kevin Coyne for Derby,maybe Kevin Rowland for Birmingham, but that's West Mids innit; and Rowland was a Londoner allegedly.....well, he sounded like one when he was one of those Punk Rocker chaps in The Killjoys?
Nuneaton's 'Kevin', was, of course, Kevin Harrison.
No spring chicken in '81, our Kevin had been around since the early seventies, playing in various beat combos and what not.Our Kev was,prior to his solo outings,also in a quite awful local 'punk' band called The Urge,who were very crap.So he'd done his time and graduated. Strewth!?  He was even chums with This Heat,somehow?
This is a cassette he made for a nascent Glass Records,which showcases his eclectic musical taste,from minimal composition,Krautrock, Fripp and Eno to post-punk.
Mostly recorded in his home studio,its a UK DIY classic.Especially fine are the tracks that end side two, namely the tape-echo workout called 'Walkabout' and 'Making Friends in Radioland';where a recording of Kevin offering his opinions on some new record releases on a local radio show is the basis of an amusing musique concrete experiment.The chirpy local radio, 'Smashy and Nicey' type presenters voice sits in stark contrast to Kevins moody responses. When asked for scores out of ten for some unheard pop tunes,we get :"Well thats ten from Yvonne and Glenda.....and you Kevin?"
"......er....Nothing",says the not so young mr Harrison.

Tracklist:

1 Tensions Between Emotions
2 Enmeshed
3 Indirect Contrast
4 The True Bounce (Of Invested Energy)
5 Escaping From The Zoo
6 Modern Industry With Its Back Against The Wall
7 Time Shift
8 A Moment Of Joy
9 Pablo 
10 The Humming Of The Hive
11 Returns Happy
12 Alpha/Zeta
13 Voices 1
14 Voices 2
15 Waalwijk
16 Shutdown
17 Verdant Arcadia
18 Bent Logic
19 Commercial Radio Riding On Phil Spector's Back
20 Screened Surface
21 The Changing Face Of Today's Music
22 News At One
23 The Middle East Construct
24 Fast Forward
25 Thoughts Of Ripples Suddenly Disturbed
26 The Popeye Melodies Are Gone
27 Hammer Nails Into A Wall/Something Curious
28 "It's A Good World, Isn't It?"
29 Walkabout
30 Making Friends In Radioland/
 Derv's Radar Favourites From Space

DOWNLOAD kevin harrison n'est pas mort HERE!

Jandek ‎– "What Else Does The Time Mean?" (Corwood Industries ‎– Corwood 0784) 2006

Jandek Monday again; with the dysfunctional Ginger loner looking troubled holding an axe,(not hipster talk for an instrument,an actual axe), on the cover doesn't fill one with confidence that our hero has decided to write some happy love songs.
And one would be right. Its another slow slide down the deck of a sinking ship into the icy black waters of a deep ocean of torment.......but with effects this time!? It seems Jandek had bought himself a cheap multi-effects pedal,favoring the digital slap back echo setting. It accentuates the feeling of isolation and loneliness very nicely indeed.
What else would time have been invented for if not to waste it wallowing in a trench of self-pitying despair.When your hour of Jandekian doom has finished you will realise that life ain't all that bad after all, despite the horror of mortality.Think about that shit tomorrow.

DOWNLOAD or what else have you got to do with your time HERE!

Peter Becker ‎– " Ambivalent Scale / Tape Recordings 1979 - 1981" (Vinyl-on-demand ‎– VOD115.3) 2013

Peter Becker, one half of Eyeless In Gaza, released a couple of minimal synth pop cassettes around 1980 on his Ambivalent Scale recordings label. Kindly gathered together for this compilation on our mate and yours' label,Vinyl on Demand......the on demand bit meaning...'Are you Loaded?'.....loaded being Cash, not off yer tits on drugs.
Its classically wobbly,sequencer-free, analogue synth-pop from the peak of the UK DIY era.
He would go on to 'greater' things with Eyeless In Gaza,but this is that duo's understated equal

Tracklist:

A1 Drum Avant 7 2:00
A2 Music For Playgrounds 2:10
A3 Faces In The Dark 1:28
A4 Eyes Blink (Disco Mix) 2:33
A5 Music For The Italian Tourist Board 1:57
A6 Forch Funk 3:18
A7 Veil (PB Version) 1:58
A8 Eyes Blink (Version) 2:16
A9 Spider Noise / Ant Noise 2:28
A10 By Train To The Coast 1:28
A11 Arabesque 1:03
B1 Ukrainian Stained Glass 1:23
B2 Voyage Across 2:20
B3 We Can’t Break The Spell 2:19
B4 Aborigine Spirit Dance 2:29
B5 Loneliness Disco 2:28
B6 Ukrainian Church 1:00
B7 Winter Glide 3:21
B8 Transatlantic Flight 4:17
B9 Distance 2:33

DOWNLOAD on an ambivalent scale HERE!

Eyeless In Gaza ‎– "Mythic Language" (Ambivalent Scale Recordings ‎– ASR 050) 2014

I know what you're all thinking......Who is Megan Markle wearing today?.....for those who don't know who Megan Markle is, 1/ - I envy you; and 2/- She's the idiot who's marrying Prince Harry (I give it twenty years of a slow slide into another royal divorce).
Yes I was unfortunate enough to sit down to eat my sandwich and watch a bit of TV when I was confronted by the wall-to-wall coverage of the Sycophantic Circus that is thee Royal wedding......watch out for some dodgy policy announcements from the government hidden behind the smoke screen of designer babble and petty celebrity cameo's.
I scrambled for my royal approved Douche-Bag to deport my sandwich into as, between wretches, the commentators brown nosed the sickening smattering of desperate celebrities mingling in amongst the 'Elite'.This just about summed up the incandescent irrelevance of this laughable Illuminati party.
I noticed some black guests strolling up towards Windsor castle past some policemen who would normally have stopped them and planted something illegal on the male ones......but, No, not today.We're told we're all equal now because Megan's got a black mummy.
It doesn't end there, because apart from James fucking Blunt,Idris Elba(some actor bloke) was spotted hob-nobbing with the hoi polloi, and future president of the useless.S.of A, Oprah Winfry is videoed at length, not because she is black, but because she's an invited guest?????; chit chatting in the chapel with Earl Spencer......she's made it into the white elite at last?!
No doubt that Gil Scott Heron would call all these brothers and sisters 'Uncle Toms',and they are......I may be sounding like the latest trendy racial term, 'White Gammon', but white people need an 'Uncle Tom' slur equivalent for the token underclass representatives that have been ordered to attend so we forget about the wealth that these royal bloodsuckers have stolen in the past.Give us our castles and gold back.Windsor castle has plenty of spare rooms for homeless people,and I guess the Windsors/Saxe-Coburgs, have been exempted from the infamous 'Spare Room Tax' that has plunged the underclass deeper into debt slavery. 
Having dissed the Royals somewhat,it's worth mentioning that Prince Harry has,luckily for him, very little 'Royal Blood', as his father was obviously James Hewitt.Genetically he is more, or, less one of 'Us', which explains why he seem relatively 'normal'.

James Hewitt              Harry Saxe-Coburg

A good day to bury some bad news behind the even worse reality of this despicable privileged pantomime.......'They're Behind You'  
I wager they're even watching this debacle in Gaza.....which reminds me what this post was originally about......Eyeless In Gaza.....

Eyeless In Gaza recorded dustbins full of stuff,and it all seems to have been of a similarly high quality. So naturally, in these days of releasing every fart a band made in or out of the recording studio, here's the obligatory studio out-takes, demo's and live album released 30 years after the fact. Its a rather splendid document of a very fine and prolific duo.The savage guitar attack on the live disc being particularly impressive.Up there for shear speed with the guitarists from The Wedding Present and the Nightingales. 
(Yeah I know there was a third ,and irrelevant disc of solo Martyn Bates in the '90's',but who wants to be reminded of their 90's-selves?......i don't, thank you very much!...so i've only uploaded the good stuff,cheap/free storage space is precious.....there's an extras disc as well,but its not too essential)

Tracklist:

Disc #1 : Egg Box Mask (Eyeless In Gaza : Studio Recordings 1980-1983)

1-1 –All Echo
1-2 –Lines Of Flame
1-3 –You, So Open
1-4 –The Sun-Like-Gold
1-5 –Mythic Language
1-6 –Alms Houses
1-7 –Old Hours, Slow Daybreak
1-8 –Three Nights Running
1-9 –See She Sells, On The Seashore, Shells
1-10 –We Shade Our Eyes
1-11 –Quiet Lustre
1-12 –Prayerbook To The Quiet
1-13 –Second Music
1-14 –See The Dark Pools Flash
1-15 –The Raindreaming Ship
1-16 –Songs Of Coming Winter
1-17 –Autumn Mixes Its Colours
1-18 –Song Of A Man Who Has Come Through

Disc #2 : Fixation (Eyeless In Gaza : Live Recordings 1980-1982)

2-1 –In Flux
2-2 –Blue Distance
2-3 –Two Years On
2-4 –Lines Of Flame
2-5 –Sound Track
2-6 –The Skeletal Framework
2-7 –Struck Like Jacob Marley
2-8 –Darker Portraits
2-9 –Kiss Syntax
2-10 –Pale Hands I Loved So Well
2-11 –November, Silver & Dark
2-12 –Forward Steps
2-13 –Primary Colour
2-14 –Palms
2-15 –Urge (The Favourite Game)

DOWNLOAD the myth HERE!

Eyeless In Gaza ‎– "Caught In Flux" (Cherry Red ‎– bred 18 + 12 bred 18) 1981

I didn't rush out in my school lunch break and buy Eyeless in Gaza'a second album of 1981,unlike I did with the first album.
There was far too much going on musically back then,and they had started to repeat themselves as early as 1980,then continued to do so.This album is a testament to that.
Basically its 'Photographs as Memories' 2, but without the hits.
However, listening to it now , compared to the incredibly terrible pop the kids listen to today this is Mozart. Full of the intelligence, energy and passion that the millennial generation seems to have none of......even when they're playing on their X-Box or Playstation. Obsessed by trivia in an insular world of 'Tech', and disposable triple albums for twerking about breaking up with boyfriends.
Such was the small demand for Eyeless In Gaza products, Cherry Red included a free 12" EP.But things moved fast in those days and they got lost in the milieu......funny how time seems to have slowed down, or is it because our own personal perceptions have sped up?...but art in general seems to have become stuck.
Musically 'Grime' is spoken of as the latest thing, but wasn't that around at the turn of the millenium(?), Dizzy Rascal and all that? That's not excluding the fact that its really just 'Hip-Hop',(which has been around since Eyeless In Gaza's Caught In Flux!) with a silly name featuring 40 year old rappers talking in that very silly accent where 'Th' become 'Phfff' ......I Phffink,Phffank God, therephorr I yam.....Nah,I don't Phffink so mate!
Someone was going on about how 'Rap' began in Africa last week.....frankly who gives a flying fuck where it was invented,the sad thing is that it can't be uninvented in Africa!......dunno how I got here but, it was fun.

Tracklist:

The Eyes Of Beautiful Losers

A1 The Eyes Of Beautiful Losers 5:25
A2 Still Air 3:38
B1 Out From The Day-To-Day 3:00
B2 True Colour 4:17
B3 Keynote Inertia 2:30

Caught In Flux

C1 Sixth Sense 3:30
C2 Point You 2:27
C3 Voice From The Tracks 4:00
C4 Scale Amiss 3:00
C5 The Decoration 2:45
C6 Continual 2:15
D1 Soul On Thin Ice 2:50
D2 Rose Petal Knot 2:10
D3 Skeletal Framework 3:30
D4 See Red 2:35
D5 Half Light 3:15
D6 Every Which Way 5:01

DOWNLOAD in flux HERE!

Eyeless In Gaza ‎– "Photographs As Memories" (Cherry Red ‎– BRED 13) 1981

What a great album?
I vividly remember spending my £3.99 one school lunchtime on this after reading a Review in Sounds. I thought it was by Dave McCollough,but no, it was Des Moines, the compiler of 'Hicks From The Sticks".....and guess what...here it is:

FUTURA OPTIMA
by DES MOINES (Sounds, February 14, 1981)

"This record celebrates the first anniversary of Nuneaton duo Eyeless In Gaza and simultaneously plugs another hole in the Coventry Nuneaton jigsaw already graced by the Reluctant Stereotypes, The Urge and semi-cult figures Pete Bosworth and Kevin Harrison.
Recorded and mixed very cheaply in 24 hours last July, the disc has a decidedly ‘live’ feel to it, a feel which guarantees plenty of atmosphere while taking its toll in terms of bum notes, fluffed timing (cock an ear to Bates beserkly-strummed guitar on ‘Knives Replace Air’) and recurrent instrumental indecisiveness. But that’s the price you pay for being committed to first takes and minimal overdubbing usually only one synthesiser overdub per track. The entire trip is excruciatingly intense, speculative and aggressive, and almost totally devoid of discernible influences.
American jazz-funk, Big Youth and Robert Wyatt are all professed heroes of Becker and Bates, but you hear as little of them as you do of anyone except Eyeless throughout this stupendously self-assured long-playing record.
There are a lot of flaws. Former R Stereotypes song-smith Bates has an extremely challenging voice but doesn’t vary it half as much as he needs to, and sometimes affects it so contrivedly it takes the form of unlistenable asinine rantings or else projects like an unsuccessful Louis Armstrong impression.
Usually, though, it’s just so for futurism par excellence. ‘From A to B’, ‘Speech Rapid Fire’ and ‘No Noise’ are three representations of how Becker (£200 Wasp synthesiser, voice, percussion, violin, stylophone, ‘treated tapes’) and Bates (voice, electric guitar, plastic organ, soprano sax) at full flow achieve their thoroughly magic melodies. Their formula isn’t easy to unravel. Becker’s uncanny flair for compelling succinct synthesiser hook lines is the conspicuous characteristic, but Bates’ imperiously evocative vocal is a factor just as crucial.
‘John of Patmos’, with a vocal line superficially reminiscent of ‘White Man In Hammersmith Palais’ and featuring Bates’ cliché crazy sax, is one that botches its pretension to ‘avoid entropy’, disintegrating into time-wasting chaos and representing Eyeless at their worst. ‘In Your Painting’ is similar rubbish, the musical equivalent of cycling over a canvas full of oil paints and calling the result ‘art’. Listen out for both of them nonetheless we rolled about when we heard them, they’re so ridiculous. They made us feel so conservative!
Sad that ‘Kodak Ghosts Run Amok’, the indie EP of ’80, didn’t join the other ‘Photographs As Memories’, a victim of the frequently misguided ‘no duplication-of-material’ stance favoured by your average left-field combo. But the highspots of the album are truly staggering, and it’ll be interesting to witness the band break cover from the false security of policy statements (‘It’s important to us that our music intuitive … we make music from pure feeling as opposed to analytical and methodical considerations‘ etc etc) get up there on a podium, take risks and sing for their suppers. Sing, in fact, lyrics like ‘Scratch at peeling veneer, worn unpolished. Carve more lines and refuse to acknowledge Praise up your figure. The Indian giver. As if it’s seven years bad luck just to look in the mirror’. (‘Seven Years ’)."

Yeah, I'll concur with that, saves me writing anything much anyway.

Just that it sounds better today than when i first played it.

Its hard to believe Martyn Bates was in the truly awful ska bandwagon missers,The Reluctant Stereotypes, with the truly awful future MTV 'VJ',Paul King of 'King';that truly awful group from Coventry who had a couple of truly awful hits in about 1985,and whose main contribution to fashion were truly awful mullets and doc martens sprayed with paint.....Truly Awful!

Tracklist:

A1 Seven Years
A2 Fixation
A3 Looking Daggers
A4 From A. To B.
A5 Clear Cut Apparently
A6 Speech Rapid Fire
A7 John Of Patmos
B1 Knives Replace Air
B2 Faceless
B3 In Your Painting
B4 A Keepsake
B5 Whitewash
B6 No Noise

DOWNLOAD these digital files as memories HERE!

Eyeless In Gaza ‎– "Others" (Cherry Red ‎– Cherry 31) 1981

Another Eyeless In Gaza EP from 1981 that contains interchangeable tracks that could fit on any of their early records,and could even sit comfortably in with the out-takes.Although these tracks could easily have been out-takes from the "Photographs As Memories" LP (up next)

Tracklist:

A Others 2:52
B1 Jane Dancing 1:02
B2 Ever Present 1:53
B3 Avenue With Trees 3:21

DOWNLOAD like the others HERE!

Eyeless In Gaza ‎– "Invisibility" (Cherry Red ‎– Cherry 20) 1981

Eyeless's big indie label debut from 1981. 
Not really a singles band as you could pick nearly any track to be a single as they all seem to be of the same standard, and not exactly catchy.
If minimalist electronic punky introverted extrovert soul is your bag down the disco then this is the duo for you.

Tracklist:

A Invisibility 2:39
B1 Three Kittens 4:43
B2 Plague Of Years 1:38

DOWNLOAD invisibly HERE!

Eyeless In Gaza ‎– Kodak Ghosts Run Amok (Ambivalent Scale Recordings ‎– ASR 002) 1980

Eyeless In Gaza ,the kings of the Nuneaton sound, got their single out well before Bron Area(probably had more money?),and sounded immediately more sophisticated and capable than their local rivals. They seemed to come out of the womb fully formed,and unleashed a torrent of the highest quality,and emotionally charged minimal post punk avant-soul.Three EP's and two albums within the space of a year!?
This one is their debut vinyl on their own DIY label Ambivalent Scale from 1980, and displays a repeated interest in photography as a psychological catalyst for rebirth,or time travel. 

Tracklist:

A Kodak Ghosts Run Amok
B1 China Blue Vision
B2 The Feelings Mutual

DOWNLOAD and run amok HERE!

Jandek ‎– "I Threw You Away" (Corwood Industries ‎– Corwood 0770) 2002

Who did he throw away????
Only the bleakest music for the bleakest day of the week.Its Sterling's 32nd album,and it's 'Jandek Monday'again.Coming round like a dose of musical shingles to ruin your week.
A return to his classic howling and despondent strumming style,enhanced with some wailing harmonica squalls.After the previous three spoken word albums,this bleak masterpiece has been described as like mainlining grief submerged in a cold fog in a butchers shop of the soul. Alas, I reckon its also like the closest any non-junkie can get to experiencing the excruciating withdrawal symptoms of cold turkey.Instead of withdrawing from hard drugs, its a withdrawal from happiness.
The Jandek listening experience is as much a part of the recording as is the 'music'.One can implant ones own deepest anguishes and pain into the songs like cold lightening entering a golf club and stopping the heart of its captor.
Crawl into a pit of despondency with the mysterious Texan bard of Misery and experience the catharsis of knowing there's something out there who is more self-pitying than you are.

Sad Anorak Moment No. 27856:

The picture on the sleeve is in Cork City, Ireland. Thats St. Marys Cathedral in the background......yes Jandek went on Holidays it seems?!
And here's what it looks like now:

Tracklist:

1 Blues Turned Black 12:14
2 It Seems Forever 7:39
3 I Threw You Away 8:10
4 Frozen Beauty 11:50
5 The World Stops 9:01

DOWNLOAD a disposable you HERE!

Bron Area ‎– "The Trees And The Villages" (Glass Records – GLALP 005) 1983

Bron Area try their level best to make some palatable post punk pop that nobody liked.
There's something sad about 'Unpopular Pop',like a neglected toy stuffed in the corner of a dusty cupboard. Bron area obviously wanted to be liked, and have clearly tried hard to make some 'proper' tunes with melodies, and musicianly craft. The trouble is its actually hard to write a catchy melody.Experimentation is easy, but to actually write a song that sticks in 'yer brane' and keeps you humming it long after the record finishes takes.....well......talent?
Bron should have stuck to experimental pop, which is another word for 'unpopular pop',which they did,accidentally......However, the tunes on here display a certain charming quality, of youth learning to be grown up and then finding out that sophisticated adulthood is very, very, crap.We then spend the remainder of our lives trying to reattain the perfection we had before it got corrupted.Once invented it can't be uninvented, and impossible to unlearn. Unless someone creates the Khymer Rouge of pop.....led by a Pol Pot of Pop.
Any volunteers?
I'd love to,but....you know what?.....I can't be fucking arsed!

Tracklist:

A1 Les Arbes 3:29
A2 Love Stories 6:30
A3 As Midday Screams 1:58
A4 This Year 1:02
A5 Dancing 4:04
A6 Sometimes In Water ... 2:41
B1 Caught Then Drowned Affection 2:00
B2 Elegy To Innocence 7:45
B3 Secret Places 4:09
B4 In Victory 4:04
B5 Separate Rooms 2:31

DOWNLOAD some leafy pop HERE!

Bron Area ‎– "Different Phrases" (Glass Records ‎– GLASS 012) 1982

A jaunty triptych of post punk synth pop from Nuneaton, including Bron area's signature tune, "You'd Be amazed" albeit in a rather overcooked version.
The sound in general is moving away from sounding like chums Eyeless in Gaza towards innocent sounding ear friendly pop tunes.Ahhhhhh!

Tracklist:

A Different Phrases 3:19
B1 You Would Be Amazed 2:43
B2 Dancing 4:05

DOWNLOAD different phrases for different folks HERE!

Bron Area ‎– "Fragile Sentences" (Ambivalent Scale Recordings ‎– ASR 012) 1981

OK, so i've been informed that Eyeless in Gaza met at a Bron Area gig, but when did the they both start sounding like each other?
Eyeless In Gaza had two albums out in 1981, so I'm assuming that they got there first?'There',being 'The Nuneaton Sound' I suppose?
It does tend to happen in local scenes, where everyone seems to adopt the same style, and sound alike, even unconsciously? From MerseyBeat onwards this has been a fact,and a demonstration of the Human pack instinct in action.
If there's anyone out there who don't know what Eyeless In Gaza sound like.......no I won't say Bron Area,tempting though it is.
Think, minimal electronics, naked guitar slashing, in yer face over emotive vocalising in a shoutier sub- Billy Mackenzie slow vibrato stylee,but without the high notes.That's Bron Area in Gaza for ya!
Despite that its good stuff,or at least 'was' good stuff, until eyeless got far too sophisticated and self-consciously 'experimental'.....as for Bron Area, they should have stopped after this DIY single/EP.

Tracklist

A1 Fragile Sentences

A2 Green Avenue
B1 The Unfortunate Reply
B2 System

DOWNLOAD eyeless in brum area HERE!

Bron Area ‎– "One Year" (Ambivalent Scale Recordings ‎– ASR 003) 1980

Keeping on a theme of post punk minimal synth duo's, from the seething hotbed of post punk creativity that was....er......Nuneaton, Warwickshire (UK)?....... comes,or came, Bron Area.
A kind of Post Punk version of The Carpenters,but without the tunes, were Steven Parker(Check out his classic electronic Folk tape with Kevin Harrison Here!) and Martin Packwood; augmented by French bloke Alain Royer. I suppose a French Bloke would be at home in Nuneaton, because that's the kind of small anonymous town that makes up the majority of France. A pointless place stuck on the borderline between east and west midlands, where the slovenly 'Brummie' meets the East Midlands accent(as now made famous by East Mids own  Sleaford Mods,probably the only band left on the planet worth listening to?). I do remember scoring a Hat-Trick in a football match against Nuneaton Borough; the third goal I compleatly sliced on the six yard line and it went in off the post; that is kind of what Bron area was for the music scene.....an accidental hit,viewed with greater fondness the further back in time they drifted. Of course I now remember this hat-trick goal with a slight tear in the eye (mainly because i doubt i can even run these days,never mind score a bloody goal!), and Bron Area has that same taste.Music of such naiveté and charming innocence is no longer  possible in this over-informed shit-hole that is modern life.
Unfortunately,they quickly lost their innocence,and started to sound....oh christ!..... "sophisticated",and .....i hate this word too...."Experimental". Experiment as much as you want, you will never attain the sonic heights of accidentally creating something randomly weird purely because you don't know any better.
Their peon to the golden year of 1977, the year Punk Broke for us provincial types, is utterly charming but there contains a small moment of truth within the primary school poetry....."We all cried, the night the energy died, that was 1977"......of course the energy didn't die in 1977,perhaps a few years later in 1983, but i suppose the rot had set in as the leaders sold out,but that was when us provincial kids started ....ahhh shit......"Experimenting"!?
This cassette captured that moment of transition, before Bron Area got "Experimental" and started to sound like "Sophisticated" fellow Nuneaton synth duo, Eyeless In Gaza......or was it vice versa(Not the Band)?

Tracklist
A1 You'd Be Amazed
A2 The Long Dream
A3 Unknown Friends
A4 1977
A5 Yes She Knows
A6 Love Song
A7 Images
B1 Sunday Morning
B2 Walking
B3 You'd Be Amazed
B4 Swarm
B5 The Car
B6 1945
B7 Calling Michael
B8 Genette
B9 Green Avenue
B10 "Jazz"
B11 Where Is She Now?

DOWNLOAD and be amazed HERE!

Max & Malcolm ‎– "Max & Malcolm" (Dangerous Rhythms ‎– DANGER 1) 1982

Yeah,that's all great, but what happened to the members of Metabolist ?
No-one really knows, except for this solitary Cold Wave tinged minimal electronic LP from 1982,featuring Malcolm Lane,main protagonist of said post-prog starlets.
Who's this 'Max' geezer then?
Pseudonymously labeled 'Max Headroom' he bears an unfortunate resemblance to 'Twat of the year 2005', Pete Doherty(If you don't know who he was, don't find out!),or maybe even Twat of the Seventies and beyond, Sir Paul MaCartney. Other than that there seems to be no consequent trace of Mr Headroom; unlike messers Doherty and MaCartney.
That's how we like it way down here; do what needs to be done then fuck Off back under your rock.Again,unlike Messers Doherty and MaCartney!
Malcolm did some other obscure stuff,but i'm damned if I can remember what they were!?
This venture into the murky world of guitar and drum ethnically  enhanced minimal electronica is really very good indeed.
It maintains the darkness of Metabolist's studio work,but stripped down even further to the bare bones,enhancing the misery and loneliness a notch.Music for anonymous urban bedsit dwelling.

Tracklist:
Are The Trumpets Ready
Slow Dancing 

Why Do Tigers Wander Thru My Mind?
Palest Of Places
Their Ghosts Do Shimmer
Inside
High Adventure
Into Space
Lost People
Warning
Wild Beast

DOWNLOAD to the max HERE!