Cultural Terror

Roughly sixty-five million years ago towards the close of the Cretaceous period, I dabbled in cassette tapes of noisy electronic shite. Noisy electronic shite was the internet when most of you lot were still agonising over Optimus Prime's latest bout of existential nausea in the Transformers comic, and you were probably also listening to the Electric Light Orchestra and watching Michael J. Fox films on a VCR the size of Battersea power station, yer twat.

Amongst the more enthusiastically offensive of my many, many correspondents of the time was the excellent Trev Ward - a lovely bloke in person, and the man behind a tape label known as Zeal SS in 1987 or thereabouts. The SS stood for Severe Systems, naturally. I released a couple of Trev's tapes on my own tape label, and he put out one of mine - a live recording to which he gave the title Death in a Milan Square.

This double cassette compilation was a label sampler comprising excerpts from everything that was available at the time. I'm featured - doing a fairly poor impersonation of Whitehouse as recorded in the sculpture studio at my college in Leamington Spa; as are ESP Kinetic - musical organ of the famous Neil Campbell, Thee Unkommuniti - Tim Gane's group prior to Stereolab, Final - which was the bloke from Godflesh, Asepisis - which was my mate Jez from school making a noise on my stereo, the Apostles, Ashenden, Grey Wolves, and others you may recall if you have a long memory and were into the noisy electronic shite; and it's available for free download here.

I say noisy electronic shite, but the compilation is actually quite varied, even musical providing you're not expecting the Monkees. Some of it may appear extreme to the uninitiated, but it should probably be remembered that this was the decade in which a badly photocopied picture of a concentration camp was probably confronting society with its own inherent hypocrisy whilst hoping to upset you as much as possible, rather than suggesting that concentration camps had necessarily ever been a good thing. I realise there may have been some room for ambiguity in more recent years, particularly amongst those on the fringes of power electronics and certain fat Nazis who seem to be of the belief that the wrong side won the second world war, but if there was any of that here, and I'm pretty sure there wasn't, then I remain unaware of its presence in case that needs stating. We were young and stupid, and it was supposed to be repellant. That was the point.

...and I'm surprised at how good it is to hear this stuff again.

Their Darkest Hour

A few years ago I was in a band called Konstruktivitsts, famously or semi-famously instigated by Glenn Wallis, one time Whitehouse ivory tickler and Throbbing Gristle bag carrier. We recorded one album whilst I was in the band, although my favourite stuff emerged from sessions prior to that, just Glenn and myself at his house in Norwich hammering out a few ideas directly onto his portastudio. Happily Monsieur Y, which was one of these tracks, has resurfaced on a new collection of previously unreleased material from Glenn and Mark. Their Darkest Hour, as the collection is called, is free to download from the Konstruktivists' bandcamp page. Whilst I'm blowing this particular trumpet, you may be interested to know that the cover painting for Konstruktivists' Black December - as originally released on lovely vinyl back in 1984 - is one of mine, and Psykho Genetika - also available from the aforelinked bandcamp page has been described as the greatest industrial album of all time by at least a few people. Personally I wouldn't call it industrial, but it is indeed one powerful fucker of an album, which I would recommend to anybody with a taste for spooky electronics.

Ooh ooh - I also play on Housewife's Choice which is on Kollection 78-95 so you need to buy that one too in order that your archive of all my mighty deeds remaineth complete.

It's okay. I'm joking.

The Vostok Lake Interview

A few years ago I was a regular on a poorly attended bulletin board frequented by Random Static recording artist Daphne Lawless, and became roughly the only other contributor - excepting Daphne herself - to a question and answer thread vaguely forming a preface to the release of Vostok Lake's excellent Small Group Psychosis album. More recently, whilst going over some old writings, essays, shopping lists, and cat feeding reminders posted on the fridge door, I came across this interview and noticed that, as it stood, it wasn't that easy to read, often comprising blocks of five or six unrelated questions followed by the attendant blocks of five or six answers; so, I had a go at editing it into something with a more organic flow, and which I pray carries a slightly more conversational tone.

Happily, Daphne has now posted this interview in full on her Vostok Lake blog here. Hopefully it should be of some appeal to anyone with any sort of interest in progressive rock, electronic music, home recording, the New Zealand scene (or lack thereof), prog-cabaret (of which Daphne presently seems to be the sole proponent), or even the fabled Faction Paradox opera; and if you're still unconvinced, read it anyway because Daphne is one of those rare individuals who makes both the internet and the world a more pleasant and interesting place, and as such she deserves your support.