Various - Cassette Culture - Homemade Music and the Creative Spirit in the Pre-Internet-Age

CD1

10-Speed Guillotine - Temper Tango 

Aconite (2) -The Truth About Cable TV 

Another Headache - Cacophony Continues 

Autopsia - Lebensherrgabe 

Beequeen - EE EA 

Big City Orchestra - Karawane 

Bret Hart - Partytime 

Brume - An Amphibian 

Cacophony 33 - Frank 

Charles Rice Goff III - Big Surprise 

Dog As Master - Black Body (Excerpt) 

Don Campau - 'I Am Not Satisfied 

E Coli - Lag Phase / Djihad 

E G Oblique Graph - Fall Into Glass 

F-i - Zombie 

Gen Ken Montgomery - It Happened To You 

Girls On Fire - In My Blood 

If,Bwana - Beauty And The Beast 

ITN / Mental Anguish - Frce Of Waves (Edit) 

Jeff Central - Tragick 

Joseph K Noyce - The Beat 

Kapotte Muziek - Audio Plagio 2 

Ken Moore - Soft Pretense 

  

CD2

Larynx - Graett 

Lord Litter - St James Infirmary 

Markus Schwill - The Advantage Of Tape-Music 

Minoy - Eskalith 

Monochrome Bleu - Imagination 

Muslimgauze - Cyst 

Mystery Hearsay - Painted 

Non Toxique - Lost Statements 

PBK - Untitled 04 

Philip Johnson - Two Tracks Unused At The Time 

Psi Nukli - Trip Sequence II 

R Stevie Moore - Puttin' Up The Groceries 

Ri Gillham - Soundtracks For Imaginary Films 

Rimbaud Brothers - Deceit 

Rod Summers - Sad News 

Sheer Zed - Take A Walk Down The Street 

Storm Bugs - Hodge 

Taste Of Stool - Squeeze Bees 

Viktimized Karcass - 3.32 AM Rain 

Vittore Baroni - Living With Prosthesis 

Walls Of Genius - Sunday, Monday Or Always! 

Wolfgang Wiggers - I'll Cry Tomorrow 

2-23 -Years On Earth -Opposition

 

Credits:

Format: 320 page book by Jerry Kranitz with 2 x CD

Release Date: 2020

Label: Vinyl on Demand

Catalogue Number: VOD158

Sleeve Design: Jelle Martensn

 

Notes:

A book on cassette culture with accompanying 2 x CD set. Includes the Storm Bugs track 'Hodge'.

David Jackman - Up from Zero

Tracklist:

Ways To The Sea 

Threshold 

Up From Zero

Offshore

 

Credits:

Format,: CD 500 copies

Release Date: 2003

Label: Robot Records 

Catalogue Number: RR-31

Sleeve and label Design: David Jackman

 

Notes:

Up From Zero was originally released in 1982 on cassette (Aeroplane Records AR3, UK), This CD re-issue also includes 'Offshore' (1980) a collaboration with Philip Sanderson which first appeared on the David Jackman Snatch Tape, Ritual (TCH211). The cover shows David from sometime in 1979/80.

  

Storm Bugs - Supplementary Benefit

Side A 

1 Cash Wash 1:41

2 Eat Good Beans 1:59

3 Make Customers Matter 2:09

4 Window Shopping 2:06

5 Our Main Objective 4:44

6 Car Situations 3:20

7 Tin 2:54

8 Aboulia 19 1:06

Side B

1 Hodge 6:41

2 Slip Slap 1:36

3 Hiemal (And She Blew) 4:51

4 He Rose Up Again 3:08

5 Slow Along the Wire 1:24

6 Blackheath Episode 4:44

 

Tracks A1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, B1, 3, 4, 5, 6 by Philip Sanderson. Tracks A6, 7, B2 by Philip Sanderson & Steven Ball.

 

Credits:

Format: LP, 500 numbered copies

Release Date: 2007

Label: Vinyl on Demand 

Catalogue Number: VOD44

Sleeve Design: Philip Sanderson & Steven Ball. Photography by Steven Ball

 

Notes:

Side A of the LP comprises full length versions of the the first two Storm Bugs singles; namely the Table Matters EP (1980) and the Metamorphose single (1981). Side B contains tracks made with the unique british synthesizer the VCS3. The VCS3 has a matrix pin patch bay in which any module can be connected to any other module, resulting in complex feedback loops and unexpected modulations. The VCS3 tracks are all taken from original Snatch Tapes cassette releases.

 

Review:

Review by Ed Pinsent from: the Sound Projector magazine - 16th Issue.

An extremely satisfying and coherent spin, this excellent LP compiles some of the finest Storm Bugs work released on vinyl and cassette during 1978- 1981. Some of the cuts have appeared on that previous CD compilation Let's Go Outside and Get it Over, but this LP scoops the prize for being more comprehensive and complete, and laying out the songs in a meaningful order. It also follows a schema of sorts ñ side B contains all electronic music, side A represents the 'clunky bedroom' side of the duo, Philip Sanderson and Steven Ball.

 

The 'Table Matters' EP was released on vinyl by Loop Records in 1980; it's five tracks of edgy, clattering mayhem, made with a combination of electronics, radios, guitars, tape loops, percussion and much more. Effectively a Sanderson solo set, this EP displays wild and rugged invention compressed into short bursts of electrifying genius; four of the cuts are only two minutes apiece. Using found spoken word tapes and warped voicings, Storm Bugs deliver something that is not so much a critique of consumerism, as a semi-nightmarish distorted view of shopping in England in 1980, replete with Kwik-Save signs, shoddy goods, and futile attempts to keep customers happy. ëTable Mattersí is almost their Santa Dog; it's a perfect cryptic statement, almost inexhaustible in content, transpires in less than 15 minutes and leaves you feeling troubled for days. Great!

 

We also got both sides of the 'Car Situations' single, of which the flipside 'Tin' is something Sanderson refers to as pseudo-rockabilly using a percussion loop arrived at by very devious means. Yet 'Tin' is as catchy a pop tune as they ever recorded, with some delightful guitar riffing from Ball.

 

Side 2 of the LP features six examples of their work with the VCS3 synth, the Sythi-Bug, and short-wave radio; these are rescued from cassettes released on Sanderson's Snatch Tapes label, including Dark Cuttings, Gift, Storm Bugs and A Safe Substitute. Generally longer than the 'poppy' material on the first side, these extremely strange instrumentals give the impression of something infinite and endless, cautious explorations made across foggy and unknown territories. Both 'Hodge' and 'Blackheath Episode' are exceptionally strong experiments in electronic music, but by the time you're stranded in the middle of 'He Rose Up Again', you will be feeling almost dizzy with the doubt, fear and sheer bewilderment that seems to be embedded in every minute of this music. Ball's abstract scrapy guitar work on 'Hiemal (And She Blew)' is most notable, and it's a shame there aren't more examples of that metallic guitar noise combined so effectively with the VCS3 work; it's one of those rare moments when the separate contributions of the Bugs are fused together perfectly. Sanderson's edgier guitar work is demonstrated on 'Slow Along the Wire', a 90-second miniature of trembling angst.

 

File this alongside the estimable Snatch Paste compilation LP and we have an emerging picture of the Storm Bugs / Snatch Tapes aesthetic. There may not be much of this material available, but Sanderson and Ball are to be commended for the very inventive ways in which they explored their ideas, and they have rendered unique visions of the psychic underside of England, visions as palpable as the monochromatic photograph (by Ball) on the back cover which celebrates the horrors of suburbia with an enquiring eye. credits

 

Philip Sanderson - No No No No

1. No No No No

2. Future Derivatives

3. Bubble Drum

4. Scream Test

5. Swingers

6. Beddy Buys

7. Print Through

8. Holding Little Hands

 

Credits:

Format: Download. Plus 5 CD-R

Release Date: 2016

Label: Snatch Tapes

Catalogue Number: None

Sleeve Design: Philip Sanderson

 

Notes:

No No No No is a collection of tracks recorded using an emulation of the EMS VCS3 made in Max/MSP by Sanderson over which vocals were added, often in one or two takes. Sent out in very limited numbers (no more than 5) as a Christmas CD-R with a hand drawn cover (see second image) then made available as a download.

 

Review:

Review by Sam Davies from the May 2017 edition of the Wire magazine:

Philip Sanderson was first musically active as part of the duo Storm Bugs on the early 1980s cassette scene, a DIY scene predicated on cheap reproduction, and the Bandcamp era offers such micro-cultures an ideal second life (for now.) So as well as making the original output of Storm Bugsí Snatch Tapes label available, itís also given Sanderson an outlet for a run of new tapes. No No No No, on which Sanderson mutters cut-up incantations over different grades of electronic mudslide, doesnít sound out of place in 2017 either; like Mordant Music, Ship Canal or Hacker Farm, itís a very English sound. Made with the means to hand, and completely unafraid of grime or decay; these are sounds left out of the fridge, pulled out from under sofas, disinterred from lofts with a dusting of fibreglass.

 

Various - Your Song, My Foot! Vol. 3: The 1979 Edition

Side A

Storm Bugs Full Moon in My Pocket (Tail Light) 

The Righteous Yeah Fite Dem Back 

Tomutonttu Dernière Croisade 

Infinite Article The Void 

German Army Do The Dog 

Strotter Inst. 79 Dehinnorstuuww 

The Dead Mauriacs Take A Card, Imagine A Gas, See Music As Escaping Water, It's A Test 

Natalia Beylis Demoncrats 

 

Side B

Phew The Void 

Mike Cooper Money Jungle 

Ed Bear Various Times 

The Pheromoans Cold Turkey 

Stuart Chalmers Untitled 

The Driver Of The Hearse Interzone 

Storm Bugs Full Moon In My Pocket (Port Sight) 

Gen Ken* & Julian Cartwright High Pressure Days

 

Credits:

Format: Cassette compiled by Daniel Blumin as WFMU fundraiser

Release Date: 2019

Label: None

Catalogue Number: None

Sleeve Design: Mayuko Fujino, illustration by John Godbert 

 

Notes:

The tracks on the album are all cover versions of songs that apperaed on debut LPs in 1979. The cover illustration is by John Godbert, the artist who drew the cover of The Fall's 1979 LP - Live at the Witch Trials. Of the design John says, "It’s based on a wooden statue of a female figure that was found in a loch in the Scottish Highlands in the 19th century. She was a goddess who protected the loch & turned out to be 5,000 yrs old. This is very “Witch Trials” related, and MES would have liked it."

 

The tape includes two versions by The Sorm Bugs of the Swell Maps track "Full Moon In My Pocket" recorded in New Cross and Elephant & Castle.

Ice Yacht - Pillbox

Side A

1. Pillbox 13:30

2. Up and Over 01:28

 

Side B

3. Slow Water 09:09

4. Ice Spikes 05:36

 

All tracks by Philip Sanderson.

 

Credits:

Release Date: 2020

Label: Snatch Tapes

Catalogue Number: tch 219

Sleeve Design: Layout and painting by Philip Sanderson

Reviews:

Review by Frans de Waard - Vital Weekly, number 1243 week 30

 

A few years ago I reviewed 'Pole Of Cold' by Ice Yacht, a musical project by former Storm Bug Philip Sanderson (Vital Weekly 981). Between then (2015) and now, Sanderson became more active and usually under his name. I am not sure why he pulled out the moniker Ice Yacht again unless it is to say that this is something quite different from his other work, which is quite electronic and at times 'poppy' (a term to be used carefully). As Ice Yacht we find him in a more abstract modus operandi. During the April lockdown he went out on the "Romney Marshes to capture ‘wild sound’, be it rusty gates, distant warehouse activity on the river Rother, or short wave radio signals", which back home were moulded into four pieces of music. Sanderson calls it "badly treated and manipulated before being fed into feedback loops", which may suggest something noisy and gruesome and that it surely is not. It is not necessarily very quiet and ambient. Rusty it surely is, and we can connect Ice Yacht to the many musicians working with similar strategies of lo-fi ambience based on field recordings taped onto old cassettes. It lacks Sanderson's current electronic and 'poppy' edge and sees him returning to the loopy scratched records of Storm Bugs, but perhaps less loopy and scratched. Different techniques and more experience in crafting experimental music resulting in thirty minutes of fine sonic bliss and at that, I must say, all too short. I would have loved more of this today. Had I known where I kept the download of the previous one, I would have played that straight after this. Now, I settled for this twice and that also went down well. (FdW) 

 

Review by Neil Kulkarni The Wire September 2020 

Sanderson has also put out new recordings under the name Ice Yacht, and Pillbox is four tracks of purely instrumental composition, wherein his vocal absence allows for a more introspective and wintry unfolding of his fascinations. The two long pieces here are key. “Slow Water" seems to follow an Antarctic dredger through an endless night, signs of life dopplering off downwards from its implacable movement, and "Pillbox" is isolationism par excellence, the terror and beauty of an endless ice shelf surveyed with a laser-like, steadicam feel, before unseen megabeasts start breaking through the mantle and pulling you under. 

Philip Sanderson - Lost With All Hands

1. LOST WITH ALL HANDS (The Legend of Goodwin Sands) 19:04

2. The Mourning After 20:52

Music Side A & B: Philip Sanderson 

Vocals and lyrics Side A: George Gilbert - from the album Medway Flows Softly - Songs of Kent by George Gilbert.

Credits:

Format: Bandcamp Download

Release Date: 2022

Label: Snatch Tapes

Catalogue Number: None

Sleeve Design: Philip Sanderson 

Notes:

Goodwin Sands is a sandbank off the coast of Deal in Kent notorious as the site of shipwrecks and the loss of thousands of lives. The perils of the sands and the phantom vessels that haunt it have been the subject of folk songs and poems. LOST WITH ALL HANDS locates itself within this narrative. The two elements of the piece are an electronic soundscape combined with a reworking of a folk song The Legend of Goodwin Sands that originally appeared on the 1974 LP Medway Flows Softly - Songs of Kent by George Gilbert. The soundscape was made using granular synthesis with the shifting atoms echoing the particles on the sands, whilst Gilbert’s voice has been electronically processed to generate an accompanying crew/chorus of voices. Side B - The Mourning After employs pulse comb filters excited by a range of audio sources including location recordings in Kent, vocals and shortwave radio.

credits

 

Ice Yacht -Noisy Nylon

Side A

1. Nitty Nora (Head Explorer) 03:37

2. Underneath The Underneath 02:42

3. Teen Scene 05:05

4. Dépêche-Toi (Hurry Up) 04:18

5. Break Their Legs so They Can't Lay Eggs 04:17

Side B

6. Running From Ghosts 13:09

7. Jizzy Jazz 05:54

Credits:

Format: MC 30 copies, Bandcamp Download

Release Date: 2022

Label: Snatch Tapes

Catalogue Number: tch 223

Sleeve Design: Philip Sanderson 

 

Notes: Philip Sanderson: various software, vocals, guitar, shortwave radio, MFB Nanozwerg, and artwork.

Reviews:

"...excursions of cosmic music being crushed by the wheels of hard-hitting pop industrialism. A great blast!" Frans de Waard Vital weekly number 1336

Philip Sanderson and David Jackman -Terrain/Adrift

Side A

Terrain (Jackman and Sanderson)

 

Side B

 Adrift (Jackman)

  

Notes:

Three tracks called 'Terrain' were recorded by David Jackman and Philip Sanderson in the Snatch Tapes 'studio' in Paddington, London during the summer of 1980. Side A of the 10 inch features one of these tracks, the second 'Terrain' track appeared on the Jackman/Sanderson tape 0 North in 1981, but has not been re-issued. The third 'Terrain' track became 'Offshore' as featured on the Ritual cassette. The B-side track is from the David Jackman Snatch Tape Adrift.

 

Review:

From: the Wire Magazine by David Keenan:

In light of Throbbing Gristle finally delivering on punkís broken promise to liberate music from "musicians", the UKís underground tape scene became the suppository for some of the most innovative and challenging noises that followed in punkís wake. At the vanguard was David Jackman. Between 1979 and 1983 he recorded a slew of cassettes under his own name before retreating from view under the name of Organum. Recorded in 1980 "Terrain" is a collaboration with Philip Sanderson who ran the Snatch cassette label. Constructed from what sounds like the slowly bowed bass strings of an electric guitar and looped percussion given halos of echo, itís an understated drone piece that eventually builds to nothing. The flipside "Adrift" is much more striking. Oddly melodic is assembled from a repeating bass and an assortment of looped tapes set in a bizarre waltz time. Over a slowly seesawing backing track muzzy choral blasts rise and fall in a pattern that could be the duoís miniature take on Tangerine Dreamís Zeit. "Adrift was originally the tittle track of a solo Jackman cassette released by Snatch in a run of 20 copies in 1981.Though Die Stadt pressings donít exactly reach mass circulation figures either, the tracks reappearance here is as welcome as it is surprising.

 

Storm Bugs - Up the Middle Down the Sides

Track Listing

Note: both sides of the LP are collaged into one long track

 

Side A (Mannequins Positive)

1. Lets see what happens if we try doing this (0.26)

2. Water Bottle Wasp (0.22)

3. Little Bob Minor (3.36)

4. Pity the Small (2.10)

5. Protoslap (0.58)

6. Thin Line Flash of Traffic (0.59)

7. Full English Breakfast(0.53)

8. 111 (4.03)

9. Skid Pan Buoy (2.59)

10. Holiday 82 (0.29)

 

Side B (Mannequins Negative)

1. Blackheath Episode (4.54)

2. Later that Same Evening (1.38)

3. Live at Top Shop (0.29)

4. Make Customers Matter (1.44)

5. In the Naked Girl's Majesty (1.01)

6. Wasp Bottle (4.11)

7. Our Main Objective (4.41)

 

Tracks A1, 3, 6, 9, B1, 2, 4, 7 by Philip Sanderson. Tracks A4, 5, 7, 8, 10, B3 by Philip Sanderson & Steven Ball. Tracks A2, B6 by Steven Ball. Track B5 by Philip Sanderson & David Jackman.

 

Credits:

Format: LP, 300 copies

Release Date: 2004

Label: Fusetron

Catalogue Number: Fuse 036

Sleeve Design: Philip Sanderson & Steven Ball

 

Notes:

The sleeve features an anamorphic projection, to decipher use a small reflective tube (see rear of cover for diagram)

 

Side A (Mannequins Positive)

1. Lets see what happens if we try doing this (0.26)

Recorded Deptford 1979 (previously unreleased)

PS: Vocals, Guitar, Short Wave

SB: Guitar, Short Wave

 

2. Water Bottle Wasp (0.22)

Recorded Maidstone 1981 (previously unreleased)

SB: Bottle, Wasp, Water

 

3. Little Bob Minor (3.36)

Recorded New Cross 1979 (From the Dark Cuttings cassette)

PS: VCS3

 

4. Pity the Small (2.10)

Recorded Strood 1980 (previously unreleased)

PS: Loops

SB: Loops and Vocal

 

5. Protoslap (0.58)

Recorded Elephant & Castle 1981 (previously unreleased)

PS: Vibes, Dr Rhythm

SB: Drums, Dr Rhythm

 

6. Thin Line Flash of Traffic (0.59)

Recorded Paddington 1980 (From Snatch 2)

PS: Scratched Records, Vocals, Guitar, Short Wave

 

7. Full English Breakfast(0.53)

Recorded Deptford 1978 (previously unreleased)

PS: Guitar, Short Wave

SB: Guitar, Short Wave

 

8. 111 (4.03)

Recorded Paddington 1980 (previously unreleased)

PS: Ring Modulator Loops

 

9. Skid Pan Buoy (2.59)

Recorded Deptford 1979 (From Dark Cuttings)

PS: Scratched Records, Guitar, Vocals

 

10. Holiday 82 (0.29)

Recorded Elephant & Castle 1981 (previously unreleased)

PS: Dr Rhythm

SB: Vibes

 

Side B (Mannequins Negative)

1. Blackheath Episode (4.54)

Recorded New Cross 1980 (From A Safe Substitute)

PS: VCS3

 

2. Later that Same Evening (1.38)

Recorded Deptford 1978 ((From Dark Cuttings)

PS: Guitar, Short Wave

 

3. Live at Top Shop (0.29)

Recorded Deptford 1978 ((previously unreleased)

PS: Vocals, Oscillator

 

4. Make Customers Matter (1.44)

Recorded Deptford 1980 (From Gift)

PS: Vocals, Guitar, Harmonica, Scratched Records

 

5. In the Naked Girl's Majesty (1.01)

Recorded Paddington 1980 ((previously unreleased)

PS: Vocals, Loops

David Jackman: Loops

 

6. Wasp Bottle (4.11)

Recorded Maidstone 1981 (previously unreleased)

SB: Bottle, Wasp, Water

 

7. Our Main Objective (4.41)

Recorded New Cross 1980 (From the Table Matters EP)

PS: VCS3, Vocals, Guitar

 

Storm Bugs - A Safe Substitute (CD)

1. Mesh of Wire/Objective/Car Situations/Mesh of Wire (Reprise)

2. Hodge

3. Solely From

4. Blackheath Episode

Bonus Tracks

5. He Rose up Again

6. 333

7. Table Matters Soundtrack

 

Philip Sanderson: VCS3 (1-5,7), vocals (1), tape loops (1,6,7), short wave radio (2), guitar (7)

Steven Ball: vocals (1), percussion (1,6), tape loops (6) 

Sarah Pomeroy: guitar/VCS3 (1)

All tracks by Sanderson except "Car Situations" and "333" by Sanderson & Ball 

 

Credits:

Format: CD, 300 copies

Release Date: 2020

Label: Klanggalerie

Catalogue Number: gg337

Sleeve Design: Philip Sanderson and Steven Ball. The sleeve images are from the Storm Bugs Super 8 film Table Matters (1980) by Steven Ball

 

Notes:

Originally released on cassette by Snatch Tapes in 1980, this 40th anniversary re-issue on CD by Klanggalerie contains a gently remastered version of the original tape plus three bonus tracks, two of which ("333" and "Table Matters Soundtrack") have not previously been released.

Purchase this CD

Philip Sanderson - Rumble of The Ruins

Side A

1 Rumble of The Ruins 02:23

2 Window Sill 02:18

3 The Elephant's Eye 03:00

4 Raven Row (You Know How it Goes) 03:06

5  Funicular Freedom 04:11

Side B

6 Au Coin Du Jardin 4.34

7 Funny Money 03:35

8 If You Take a Table 02:31

9 The Golden Fleet 04:12

10 Broken Morning 06:58

 

All tracks by Philip Sanderson

 

Credits:

Format: Cassette, 25 numbered copies

Release Date: 2020

Label: Snatch Tapes

Catalogue Number: tch 219

Design: Layout/ paintings by Philip Sanderson

Reviews:

Review by Ed Pinsent from the Sound Projector 27/07/2020

Last heard from Philip Sanderson with his very good LP On One Of These Bends, lovingly presented as a vinyl edition in an expensive jacket by Séance Centre of Canada. Today’s Sanderson item is Rumble Of The Ruins (SNATCH TAPES TCH 2020), a Bandcamp-only thing with a cover featuring a painting by the man himself – he seems to be making a venture in exploring the history of 20th-century European fine art on his own terms, turning in a mysterious tableau that contains faint traces of Paul Klee, Léger, and de Chirico.

 

Musically, Sanderson is getting back to what he does so well – songs and electronica, a form of synthop with drum machines and treated vocals, produced in a very eccentric DIY post-punk manner. This is quite different to the lush, soundtrack-y productions we heard on On One Of These Bends, and there’s a lot to be said for the immediacy of these concise and assured ditties, most of them clocking in at traditional pop-song length of three minutes. Sanderson may make it seem easy, almost throwaway at times, but I suspect there is a lot of craft underlying these songs, both in terms of composition, lyrical content, and sheer effort spent programming and overdubbing (or however he created it). Each song sounds both jaunty and slightly unsettling in equal measure; I’m not sure what is causing this impression, but while the rhythms are upbeat and foot-tappingly catchy, the melodies keep veering towards a darkened minor key, and the song delivery has a strange urgency to it.

 

That’s not to mention the lyrics, which today strike me as fairly bonkers (in a good way) – like an update on the king of balmy, red wine-soaked laissez-faire, Kevin Ayers. If I explored this pathway any further, we might end up making a case for situating Philip Sanderson in a line with other 1970s English songwriting eccentrics, such as Robert Wyatt, Eno, Pete Sinfield and Peter Hammill. I mention this as I think it’s a dimension of Sanderson’s considerable skillset which isn’t spotlighted too often, as he’s more often pegged as a cassette band / post-punk / noise artist. Personally, I also prefer his song-based work to the all-instrumental music of records like Seal Pool Sounds (2005). From 15th January 2020.

 

www.thesoundprojector.com/2020/07/27/fragments-shored-against-my-ruins/

 

Review by Neil Kulkarni The Wire September 2020

How odd l was listening to Hood's Cold House the other day and it's amazing how close Rumble Of The Ruins by Storm Bugs' Philip Sanderson shears to that period of post-rock where underground rock fans admitted they loved both Justin Timberlake and Disco Inferno. There's a similar fondness for startlingly poppy textures, a similar pleasure in the detournement of those sounds for determinedly art rock ends.

 

Sanderson's voice- check out the Canterbury via Medway psychness of "Window Sill" - now has a wonderfully unmannered, conversational feel, and the same talents in collage and subtle derailment of sources that he's made so evident in his Storm Bugs work are still present. It's the decision making within that process that's key, and Sanderson knows what to treat and what to leave untouched. So the poppiest choruses get deliberately amplified until they get glassy eyed and unsettling, the strange sonic detritus that populates these songs always executed and jettisoned before anything can detract from the melodic strength. "The Elephants Eye" and “Raven Row (You Know How It Goes)" deliver a flavour of what Kevin Ayers might cook up if he were alive and forced to work with the Residents.

 

David Jackman - Ritual

 

Side A

Ritual (Jackman)

 

Side B

Offshore (Jackman & Sanderson)

 

Credits:

Format: Cassette, 30 copies (see below).

Release Date: 1980

Label: Snatch Tapes

Catalogue Number TCH211:

Sleeve Design: both cover designs by David Jackman

 

Notes:

There were two versions of this tape; the first limited to 5 copies had a photocopied cover with a stylised bird beak standing erect in a field (the lower image), whilst the second copy was limited to 25 copies and features the cover at the top of the page with the rats. 'Offshore' by David Jackman & Philip Sanderson was included on the CD reissue of Up From Zero in 2003

 

Various Artists: Close To The Noise Floor: Formative UK Electronica 1975-1984

DISC ONE:

1. FIVE TIMES OF DUST – Computer Bank

2. THE KLINGONS – R.A.M.

3. CHRIS AND COSEY – Re-Education Through Labour

4. MALCOLM BROWN – Sedation Strokes

5. STORM BUGS – Little Bob Minor

6. THOMAS LEER – Tight As A Drum

7. BLANCMANGE – Holiday Camp

8. INNER CITY STATIC – Fractured Smile

9. WE BE ECHO – Sexuality

10.BOURBONESE QUALK – God With Us

11.NAGAMATZU Faith

12.O YUKI CONJUGATE – Disco Song

13.BRITISH ELECTRIC FOUNDATION – Optimum Chant

14.KEVIN HARRISON – All Night Long

15.VOICE OF AUTHORITY – Stopping And Starting

 

DISC TWO:

1. COLIN POTTER – I Am Your Shadow

2. BRITISH STANDARD UNIT – D’Ya Think I’m Sexy?

3. FIVE TIMES OF DUST – The Single Off The Album

4. SPÖÖN FAZER – Back To The Beginning

5. GERRY AND THE HOLOGRAMS – Gerry And The Holograms

6. THE PASSAGE – Drugface

7. JOHN FOXX – A New Kind Of Man

8. 100% MANMADE FIBRE – Green For Go

9. THOSE LITTLE ALIENS – Sentimental

10.FINAL PROGRAM – Protect And Survive

11.THE HUMAN LEAGUE – Being Boiled

12.INSTANT AUTOMATONS – New Muzak

13.CULTURAL AMNESIA – Materialistic Man

14.WORLDBACKWARDS – (Leaving Me) Now

15.ALAN BURNHAM – Music To Save The World By

16.ORCHESTRAL MANOEUVRES IN THE DARK – Almost

17.EYELESS IN GAZA – Kodak Ghosts Run Amok

18.SCHLEIMER K – Broken Vein

19.NATIVE EUROPE – The Distance From Köln

 

DISC THREE:

1. ZORCH – Adrenalin (Return of the Elohim Pt 1)

2. SEA OF WIRES – Robot Dance

3. RON BERRY – Sea Of Tranquility

4. MFH – Mistral

5. ADRIAN SMITH – Joe Goes To New York

6. MARK SHREEVE – Embryo (Extract)

7. EG OBLIQUE GRAPH – Triptych

8. CARL MATTHEWS – Encounter

9. PAUL NAGLE – Ynys Scaith

10.O YUKI CONJUGATE – Sedation

11.KONSTRUKTIVIST – Western Vein

12.ATTRITION – Dead Of Night (Excerpt)

 

DISC FOUR:

1. THROBBING GRISTLE – What A Day

2. A TENT – No Way Of Knowing

3. PORTION CONTROL – Go For The Throat

4. DC3 – Eco Beat

5. RENALDO AND THE LOAF – Dying Inside

6. BLAH BLAH BLAH – In The Army

7. LEGENDARY PINK DOTS – God Speed

8. MUSLIMGAUZE – Muslin Gauze Muslim Prayer

9. SUISSE – Live At Longborne

10.ALIEN BRAINS – Menial Disorders, Extract B2

11.STORM BUGS – Himeal (And She Blew)

12.THIRD DOOR FROM THE LEFT – In The Room

13.AL ROBERTSON – Dignity Of Labour

14.bcGilbert, gLewis, russell Mills – Mzui (Extract)

 

Credits:

Format: 4 X CD plus booklet . Also issued as double LP.

Release Date: 2016

Label: Cherry Red 

Catalogue Number: CRCDBOX24

 

Notes:

A 4CD, 60-track set exploring the origins of electronica in the UK with a 48pp booklet with artists' sleeve notes and an essay by Dave Henderson. From the Cherry Red Press Release: "Featuring tracks from key figures from the cassette label underground alongside early releases by future stars of the movement." Alonside the likes of the Human League you get two Storm Bugs tracks as well as Alien Brains, Cultural Amnesia, and Sea of Wires all of whom appeared on early Snatch Tapes compilations. An edited double LP version was also released containing one Storm Bugs track.

 

MESSTHETICS GREATEST HISS: the DIY cassette-scene vol.1

1. Jelly Babies - 'Soylent Green'

2. 391 - 'Jet Plane'

3. Instant Automatons - 'Gillian is Normal'

4. Event Group - 'Concussion Edit'

5. Missing Persons - 'Sign of The Times'

6. Danny & The Dressmakers - 'Eggs on Legs'

7. Gravity Craze - 'Song For M'

8. Farming Jim - 'Cats in The Kitchen'

9. Chromosomes - 'Hi Fi Know How'

10. Mike Jones - 'Reckless Policies'

11. Living Dead No.5 - 'Never Give In'

12. Storm Bugs - 'Car Situations (Nasal Passage)'

13. Colin Potter - 'Power'

14. Digital Dinosaurs - 'Baby Snakes'

15. Twizlers - 'We are The Twizlers'

16. Casual Labourers - 'A Lapse is Due'

17. Midnight Circus - 'Suburbia Nervosa'

18. Aconite - 'The Truth about Cable'

19. Milkshake Melon - 'Walk Oates Walk!'

20. Cultural Amnesia - 'Repetition for This World'

21. The Get - 'The Leaders'

22. Stripey Zebras - 'Walking Home'

23. Funhouse - 'Teenage Bedrooms'

24. Danny & The Dressmakers - 'Kif Kif's Magic Hat'

25. Chimp Eats Bananas - 'Shopping List'

 

Bonus MP3's

Chromosomes - 'Rot all Rulers'

Dean Johnson - 'Another Letter'

Digital Dinosaurs - 'Elephant Germs'

Farming Jim - 'New Years Eve'

Jelly Babies - 'Candy Bricks'

 

Credits:

Format: CD. 500 copies

Release Date: 2008

Label: Hyped to Death

Catalogue Number: Messthetics 10

 

Notes:

Includes a 24-page booklet with histories, photos, artifacts and an essay from Mick Sinclair, who wrote the original Cassette Pets column for Sounds.

 

The Storm Bugs track is 'Car Situations (Nasal Passage)' from the A Safe Substitute Cassette.