Showing posts with label industrial. Show all posts
Showing posts with label industrial. Show all posts

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

 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.

 


Storm Bugs - Metamorphose (Tin/Car Situations)

Side A 

Tin 

 

Side B

Car Situations

Both tracks by Philip Sanderson and Steven Ball. Philip Sanderson: loops, vocals, treatments. Steven Ball: guitar, bass, lead vocals.

 

Credits:

Format,: 7 inch single, 1,470 copies

Release Date: 1981

Label: L'invitation au Suicide 

Catalogue Number: L'invitation 0100

Sleeve and label Design: Yann Farcy

 

Notes:

Whereas the first Storm Bugs single was recorded by Sanderson on a two-track Revox tape machine the second Storm Bugs single was a collaborative affair between Sanderson and Ball using a multitrack recorder. Sanderson first created a drum loop from a bongo using various tape collage techniques. Over this he developed a rough guitar part and the vocal line.  Ball honed the guitar part into a more formal chord sequence and wrote a bass part. The two then recorded and mixed the song on an 8-track multitrack tape machine in an afternoon. The music for side B was built up from layers of tape loops made by Sanderson on top of which the vocal line was added by Ball. The lyrics to Car Situations had been written by Sanderson and Ball in Paddington using cut-up phrases from sources such as John Cage's book Silence. The release was the first on the French L'invitation au Suicide label. The single came in a 10-inch sleeve entitled Metamorphose. The design differed considerably from that which the band had agreed with the label and was disowned by them.


Storm Bugs - Table Matters

Side 1

Cash Wash

Eat Good Beans

Make Customers Matter

 

Side 2

Window Shopping 

Our Main Objective

 

All tracks by Philip Sanderson.

 

Credits:

Format: 7-inch EP. 500 copies.

Release Date: 1980

Label: Loop records

Catalogue Number: 

Sleeve Design & Photography: Steven Ball

 

Notes:

The Storm Bugs 7-inch EP on black vinyl in a printed cover with white labels featuring a small sticker. The cut up sleeve shows photographs taken in and around Charring Cross Rd circa 1979. The image of the mannequins in the top left and right corner was used for the labels of Up the Middle Down the Sides. The image at the top of the page is of the printed sleeve but there were two other alternate photocopied sleeve designs. The records were pressed a couple of months before the printed sleeves were ready thus the first 50 copies (or so) came with a folded screen printed insert. One or two copies were also sold with one-off collages by Sanderson. The remaining 450 copies have the printed sleeve.


Snatch 3

 

Side 1

Steven Ball - 60/60

Mental - Sound 2 

Ice Yacht - 0 North

Nigel Jacklin - Song

Philip Sanderson - Under Press of Sail

David Jackman - World

 

Side 2

Claire Thomas - Ashes & Diamonds

Steven Ball - Dressing for the Party

David Jackman - Blues

Alien Brains & Instruments

Orior - Call

Michael Denton - Part 3

 

Credits:

Format: Cassette, 100 copies (approx)

Release Date: 1981

Label: Snatch Tapes

Catalogue Number: TCH 300

Sleeve Design: Philip Sanderson & David Jackman. Printed sleeve and white inlay card, screen printed turquoise and pink cassette labels,

 

Notes:

The third and last Snatch Tapes complation. The tracks 'O North' and 'Ashes and Diamonds', here credited to Ice Yacht and Claire Thomas respectively, were later to appear on the Sanderson/Jackman O North tape (AR4). 'Ashes & Diamonds' was mixed by Sanderson using a flute loop made with David Jackman, snippets of vocals by Nancy Slessinger (who sang on 'Bright Waves') all fed through a Revox tape delay. '0 North' is a mix of the drum loop from the Storm Bugs single 'Tin' with Esraj by David Jackman (a slowed down version of the 'Blues' track also found on the tape. Orior were an ambient electronic duo comprising 'Clip' and Phil Hollins who released one single on the Crystal Groove label, and recorded an LP which was not released until 2016 as Strange Beauty. Nigel Jacklin released a number of tapes under the Alien Brains title many of whcih were subsequently re-issued by Vinly on Demand as as a boxset. To accompany Snatch 3 there was a screenprinted A0 poster by Philip Sandersom & Michael Denton. The Orior, David Jackman ('Blues'), and Nigel Jacklin tracks were re-issued on the Snatch Paste LP in 2006. Also included on the LP was an alternative version of the 'Ashes & Diamonds' track called 'Diamonds & Ashes'.

 


Snatch 2

Side 1

Orchestral Introduction 

Beach Surgeons: Graham Massey & Friends

Mannequin Moves: John Arnold, Brian McCarthy

Vote Police: Sarah Pomeroy, Vivienne DeVoy

Orchestral Interlude

Mountain Stream

Sea of Wires: 2 Teas & A Funny Hat

 

Side 2

David Jackman

Scratch Dub: Beach Surgeons, John Cage, Scratch Orchestra with rhythm & loops by David Jackman, Philip Sanderson and Storm Bugs

Lemon Kittens: Danielle Dax, Karl Blake

Storm Bugs: Philip Sanderson, Sarah Pomeroy, Steve Ball

David Jackman

Cultural Amnesia Dub: G. Greenway, B. Norland

Garden Dwarves Dub

 

Credits:

Format: Cassette, 100 copies

Release Date: 1980

Label: Snatch Tapes

Catalogue Number: None

Sleeve Design: Photocopy onto white paper, design by Philip Sanderson & David Jackman, Alternate cover with floorplan design by Philip Sanderson (only one or two copies exist of the alternate cover)

 

Notes: 

Sanderson had already started work on Snatch 2 when he met David Jackman in spring 1980. Jackman was drafted in to help with the compilation of the tape, with the two creating the loops and assembling the tape in Sanderson's basement flat in Paddington.

 

As with Snatch 1 the tape cover lists the names of the artists but not the track titles, further details were included on a small booklet sent out with the tape. Here are some further notes.

 

Side 1

Orchestral Introduction 

A short tape loop made by Sanderson & Jackman

Beach Surgeons: Graham Massey & Friends

The Beach Surgeons was one of the many bands that Massey formed including: 808 State, Biting Tongues, and Danny And The Dressmakers. No know track title, not known either who the 'friends' are.

Mannequin Moves: John Arnold, Brian McCarthy

The track is called 'Think Of The Girls You Left Behind was also featured on the compilation Healthy Feet/Murky Depths (1981). The track was re-issued on the Snatch Paste (2006) LP on Vinyl on Demand as 'The Girls You Left Behind':

Vote Police: Sarah Pomeroy, Vivienne DeVoy

Vote Police was a Sanderson 'band'. A tape by Vote Police was released in 1978/79 (around 10 copies). One copy was sent to Indutstrial Records and was included in a list of "tapes received" in Industrial News. No copies of the tape are known to exist. Sarah Pomeroy was briefly a member of Storm Bugs and plays guitar on this track (via a VCS3) the synths and loops etc, are by Sanderson. The track is a mix/version of the Storm Bugs track 'Objective' which was later to feature on A Safe Substitute (1981), re-issued in 2011 on vinyl by Harbinger. Vivienne DeVoy is a Sanderson pseudonym.

Orchestral Interlude

A short tape loop made by Sanderson & Jackman

Mountain Stream

A short tape loop made by Sanderson & Jackman

Sea of Wires: 2 Teas & A Funny Hat

This track is called 'Endless Rainy Day', from the cassette Individually Screened (1981). The track was re-issued as part of The Sea Of Wires / Chris Jones (12) _- Recordings 1980-82 (2014) on Vinly on Demand.

 

Side 2

David Jackman

Jackman went on to release much highly regraded material as Organum. This track is called 'Untitled' and ia different mix was to appear on the Cherry Red compilation LP Perspectives And Distortion (1981).

Scratch Dub: Beach Surgeons, John Cage, Scratch Orchestra with rhythm & loops by David Jackman, Philip Sanderson and Storm Bugs

A VCS3 percussive sequence by Sanderson, on top of which was mixed snatches: of Cage (unknown piece), Scratch Orchestra (previously unreleased) and a vocal by Graham Massey, taken from the same Beach Surgeons tape as the previous track.

Lemon Kittens: Danielle Dax, Karl Blake

The track is untitled and was not otherwise issued.

Storm Bugs: Philip Sanderson, Sarah Pomeroy, Steve Ball

The track is called 'Thin Line Flash of Traffic' and is spoken and played by Sanderson, subsequently re-issued on the Storm Bugs LP Up The Middle Down The Sides (2005) on Fusetron.

David Jackman

The track is called 'Pulses', not otherwise released.

Cultural Amnesia Dub: G. Greenway, B. Norland

Notes: the track is a looped/tape delay re-working by Sanderson of an original Cultural Amnesia number called 'Cyberforms', which appears on Video Rideo (1981). The band refer to this version as 'Cyberforms Dub'.

Garden Dwarves Dub

Garden Dwarves were a creation of Leif Thuresson who also appears on the compliation Standard Response (1979).

 


Storm Bugs - Slice of Live

Intro/Portapak/Pity the Small/Dull Sound of Breath/Window Shopping

The first 15 minutes of the Storm Bugs performance recorded live at Limehouse Town Hall on Saturday 7th July 2012.

 

Philip Sanderson/Steven Ball: loops, samples, electronics, vocals

 

Credits:

Format: Digital/Bandcamp

Release Date: 2013

Label: Snatch Tapes

Catalogue Number: none

Sleeve Design: Philip Sanderson & Steven Ball

 

Philip Sanderson - Reprint

Track Listing:

Bright waves

Reprint 1

Nein Nein Nein

Reprint 2

Under Press of Sail

 

All tracks by Philip Sanderson, except 'Nein NeinNein' by Philip Sanderson & Steven Ball. 'Bright Waves' by Philip Sanderson & Nancy Slessinger.

 

Credits

Format: CD, 500 copies

Release Date: 2003

Label: Anomalous

Catalogue Number: NOM 23

Sleeve Design: Philip Sanderson

 

Notes:

Re-issue of the 1980 cassette originally credited to Claire Thomas & Susan Vezey.


Reviews:

From: the Wire Magazine by Jim Haynes:

"...what may have been consigned to the dustbin of 1980's cassette culture turns out to be a marvellous find, as good as any of the recently recovered cassettes of recordings of Cabaret Voltaire or Throbbing Gristle."

 

From: WFMU a review by Program Director Brian Turner:

"Reprint was originally a cassette under Claire & Susan's moniker, and regardless of what name is on it today it stands as a great marker on the home-brewed experimental/electronic timeline. Glad to see Anomalous brought this back to the surface."

 

Storm Bugs - A Safe Substitute

Side 1

Mesh of Wire

Objective

Car Situations

 

Side 2

Hodge

Solely From

Blackheath Episode

 

Credits:

Format: Cassette, 80 copies

Release Date: 1980

Label: Snatch Tapes

Catalogue Number: TCH110

Sleeve Design: Steven Ball. Photocopy onto red card. The image on the cover is from the Storm Bugs Super 8 film Table Matters

 

Notes

Re-issued on red vinyl in 2011 by Harbinger records. Side 1 of the tape is a long collaged piece, mixed by Philip Sanderson in one take with several Revox reel to reel and VCS3's running simultaneously and much on the fly remixing, filtering and application of treatments. Side 2 features three VCS3 sequencer tracks by Sanderson. The following notes were added to the 2011 LP re-issue.

 

Side One

 

Mesh of Wire

2:00

Philip Sanderson: Vocals, tape delay, VCS3

The tape delay system employed two Revox tape recorders placed about 4 feet apart. The first machine recorded the signal onto the tape, which then stretched across the room to a second playbackmachine. By routing the signal back tothe first machine a long delay or feedback loop was set up. The lyrics describe a lysergic-fuelled evening in suburbia.

 

Objective

4:15

Sarah Pomeroy: Guitar/VCS3

Philip Sanderson: VCS3, tape loops, tape delay

Objective features a slow VCS3 sequence overlaid with ring modulated vocal loops (extolling the merits of good quality beans) and a warped woodwind and brass duet. The woodwind part was found on an old tape in the studio cupboard whilst the second part was created by feeding a guitar played by Sarah Pomeroy into an EMS pitch to voltage converter and using the signal to control the sine wave on theVCS3.

Car Situations

7:05

Steven Ball: Vocals, percussion, ring modulator

 

PS: VCS3, tape loops, tape delay

Sanderson and Ball had recorded a track called 'Car Situations' in Sanderson's Paddington flat. The vocal part was fed through the VCS3 ring modulator and combined with a sequencer pattern. The pace of the rhythm is upset by a low frequencyoscillator, which causes the pitch to drop at unexpected moments. As the track progresses percussion sections from the 'Nein Nein Nein' recording are gradually mixed in until they obliterate everything else.

Mesh of Wire (reprise)

3:24

Philip Sanderson: VCS3, vocals, tape delay

 

 

Side Two

Hodge

6:41

Philip Sanderson: VCS3, short wave radio

Hodge features a short wave jamming signal which was being broadcast from somewhere behind the Iron Curtain to block Radio Free Europe transmissions.The radio sound was fed through the VCS3 with the low frequency oscillator chopping the signal up into chunks.

Solely From

6:38

Philip Sanderson:VCS3, sequencer

A straightforward contest between the sequencer and one VCS3 using all three oscillators and pushing the spring reverb into distortion.

Blackheath Episode

4:47

Philip Sanderson: VCS3, sequencer

The last track used all three of the studio's EMS synthesizers. The Synthi A is driven by the sequencer to provide the main rhythm track whilst the other two VCS3s play the background drones.

 

Rewind

Ice Yacht - Pole of Cold

Side A

1 Pole of Cold 08:17

2 Racing the Arctic Shadow 06:56

3 Snow Drifter 04:17

 

Side B

1 Summer with the Snow Bees 04:20

2 Vostock Station Hallucinations 09:10

3 Whiteout Woman 05:26

 

Credits:

Format: Cassette tape,100 copies.

Release Date: 2015

Label: Fragment Factory

Catalogue Number: FRAG34 

Sleeve Design: Philip Sanderson & Michael Muennich 

 

Review:

by Aquarius Records

aquariusrecords.org/bin/search.cgi/2%7C25/Keyword=FACTRIX%20

Philip Sanderson has told more than a few tall tales in his time. Back in the early '80s, he produced a handful of industrial-dirge-drone tracks under the pseudonym Claire Thomas and Susan Vezey, nearly convincing the nascent Cherry Red Records to publish a full album from Claire and Susan until they found out that two women were not behind the project. Sanderson and his cohort Steven Ball were the miscreants behind The Storm Bugs and they ran the very impressive Snatch Tapes imprint, much of whose back catalogue had been finely reissued by Vinyl On Demand. Sanderson had also been the author to the project Ice Yacht, which had only released a single track on one the Snatch Tape compilations. The story behind this tape reads as follows - Sanderson (or as the press release states, just Ice Yacht) had the daft idea of retracing the journey of Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen to the North Pole sometime in the early '80s. Here's where the story breaks down, as Sanderson / Ice Yacht somehow lost the only recording of an unreleased album while on that journey, only to have the 'vacuum-sealed tape' find its way into the hand of Fragment Factory in Germany. Hardly plausible, but then, many were convinced of the authenticity of those Jurgen Muller recordings. While there could be something about there being a long-lost Ice Yacht recording from back in the '80s, it's more likely that Sanderson has recorded in this day and age. Thankfully, he's bolstered his fictions with a deliciously vintage sounding album of crude/cold sequences for oblique metallic synth-noise monotone. Somewhere between Factrix, Thought Broadcast, and of course Sanderson's own Storm Bugs. Numbered tapes of just 100 copies.

 

Various - Snatch Paste

Side A

1. David Jackman - Blues

2. Storm Bugs - Dull Sound of Breath Inside a Tin

3. Mannequin Moves - The Girls You Left Behind

4. Philip Sanderson - Under Press of Sail

5. Tony Clough - Untitled


Side B

1. The N4s - N4

2. Alien Brains - Song

3. Karl's Empty Body - 1464

4. Oroir - Call

5. Claire Thomas & Susan Vezey - Diamonds & Ashes


Credits:

Format: LP, 500 numbered copies

Release Date: 2006

Label: Vinyl on Demand

Catalogue Number: VOD32

Sleeve Design: Philip Sanderson

LP compiled and mastered by Philip Sanderson


Notes:

The LP sleeve is in matt reverse card but there also exists 5 copies (hand numbered) with a glossy cover instead of matt. 

A4, A5, B1, B3 origianlly released on Snatch 1.

A3 origianlly released on Snatch 2.

A1, B2, B4 origianlly released on Snatch 3.

A2, origianlly released on the Storm Bugs Gift cassette.

A5, previously unreleased.


Reviews:

From: the Sound Projector 16th Issue by Ed Pinsent

We've been hearing a fair bit from Storm Bugs over the years, so here's this welcome and timely survey of Philip Sanderson's Snatch Tapes imprint that operated in the UK in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He issued three compilation tapes (called Snatch 1-3), and some of the best contributions tothat series are now reissued here on vinyl via a selection made by Sanderson and representing the years 1979-1981.

 

Outside of David Jackman (who opens the comp with an exceptionally strong piece) and Sanderson's projects, all the names here are new to me. The thing that struck me was how unique and distinctive everything sounds here, yet all recognisably part of a very English cassette band scene that seems totally bound to that time and that place. I don't just mean the home-made feel, the use of primitive drum machines and basic synth programming, but the overall polite, cold and strained feelings that seem to emanate from almost all of this music. Every cut is slow and sad, melancholic with a bleached beauty. I'm already starting to get nostalgic for the harsh winter of 1981.

 

Three of the ten cuts are devoted to Sanderson-related projects Storm Bugs, the Claire Thomas and Susan Vezey hoax, and a solo recording. All are excellent in ways that we have already remarked on in previous issues, with the unreleased version of 'Diamond and Ashes' being particularly stunning (true to its title, it has a crystalline beauty). And Storm Bugs' 'Dull Sound of Breath Inside a Tin' exhibits some spectacular inventions in terms of the arrangement of its simple elements, as though the creators were pushing blocks of noise around like playing cards. Jackman's 'Blues' from 1980, heard here in a two-track tape version, is a rugged experiment of cymbals and tape loops generating an embryonic form of the heavy droning that he would later mastermind as Organum.

 

That's pretty much it as far as 'experimental' goes on this LP, however. The remaining cuts are equally attractive, and they are in the main examples of very good UK post-punk bleakness, expressed as instrumental or song; plenty of alienation, mystery and edginess, but nothing radically innovative in the arrangements or playing, which remain grounded in rock music. I think this is true of the tracks by The N4s and Karl's Empty Body, much as I love their wayward gnarly-rock capabilities. Mannequin Moves do a great song 'The Girls You Left Behind', wherein feelings of love have never seemed so futile; their use of cold synth and plodding drum machine is inspired. Orior manages a similar chill on the instrumental 'Call', but it's an oddly pointless exercise. Only Alien Brains, with his 'Song', returns us to slightly more dangerous turf; in just two minutes, he effortlessly combines raw electronics with radio samples to create a real sense of paranoia. The riots in Brixton and Toxteth have left a ghostly but discernible imprint on this track.

 

A perfect 'autumnal' listen for UK music fans, although I am certain this quality music is being lapped up with relish by the fans who subscribe to label owner Frank Maier's aesthetic and enjoy music of this vintage. The rush to explore this cassette era is somehow symbolised by the cryptic cover, but the disembodied hands so eagerly reaching for the tape box appear to be made of wax, or dummy's hands. It's slightly disconcerting.

 

Needless to say, this will appeal to fans of the modern field of limited cd-r label free noise ambient sound makers, Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, PseudoArcana, Digitalis, if you've been loving all that stuff, this will absolutely hit the spot.

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