Storm Bugs - Storm Bugs

 

Side A

1 Untitled

2 Our Main Objective

3 Blackheath Incident

 

Side B

1 Hiemal/Window Shopping

2 Outburst

3 Hodge

All tracks and music by Philip Sanderson except Untitled which features Sarah Pomeroy on Cello. 

Credits:

Format: Cassette, 5-10 copies

Release Date: 1981

Label: Snatch Tapes

Catalogue Number: SS1

Sleeve Design: Philip Sanderson. Photocopy onto white card. Photograph taken by David Scholefield in Maidstone

 

Notes:

A compilation of tracks By Storm Bugs many of which had been previously released. The Hiemal/Window Shopping track is a unique mix and was used as the soundtrack to the Storm Bugs film Table Matters by Steven Ball. This was re-issued on the 40th anniversary CD of a A Safe Substitute. Similarly the mix of Our Main Objective differs from other versions.  

Claire Thomas and Susan Vezey - Reprint

Side One

Bright waves

Reprint 1

 

Side Two

Reprint 2

Under Press of Sail

Nein Nein Nein

 

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

 

Credits:

Format: Cassette 100 copies

Release Date: 1980

Label: Snatch Tapes

Catalogue Number: Fuse TCH 220

Sleeve Design: Steven Ball. Photocopy onto blue card,

 

Notes:

Claire Thomas & Susan Vezey fist appeared on Snatch 1 in 1979, and were a pseudonym for Philip Sanderson. Quite where the idea came from for a female alter ego I can't recall - possibly a nod to Ducahmp's Rrose SÈlavy? To accompany Reprint a press release was issued which cast the pair as a Pre-Raethelite synthesizer duo with robes flowing as they strode across Blackheath. It was intended that the whole thing be a fairly transparent spoof. A small display board with a number of Snatch Tapes cases on it was put up in Rough Trade shop in 1980 and was seen by an A & R man from Cherry Red who believing in the existence of the pair included the Claire Thomas & Susan Vezey track 'Bright Waves' on the compilation LP Perspectives & Distortion. Cherry Red were even intending to put out an LP by the duo untik their cover was blown.

 

The sleeve notes on the tape sleeve are somewhat inaccurate,There are in fact four tracks on Reprint. The first track 'Bright Waves' features some tape delayed ethereal vocals (supplied by Nancy Slessinger) whilst the two longer tracks employ a VCS3 and tape delay process to produce an evolving percussive landscape. The fourth track is the old favourite 'Under Press of Sail' from Snatch 1. A few copies of the tape included a fifth track; a ring modulator cassette tape loop piece by Philip Sanderson & Steven Ball entitled 'Nein Nein Nein'. For info on the CD re-issue go to Reprint CD

 

Review:

From: the Wire Magazine by Jim Haynes:

 

Part shrewd marketing manoeuvre, part homage to Marcel Duchamp's alter ego Rose Selavy, DIY electronic pioneer Philip Sanderson donned the personna of Claire Thomas & Susan Vezey as two female electronic minimalists in the late 70's and early 80's. He kept up the charade long enough to land a Thomas & Vezey track on the 1980 Cherry Red compilation Perspectives and Distortion but was thwarted in his attempts to when the label discovered that Claire & Susan were not who they claimed to be. Sanderson subsequently released those recordings as the Reprint Cassette through his Snatch Tapes [actually the cassette release came first and was what lead Cherry Red to discover Thomas and Vezey], which published his other project Storm Bugs and a couple of recordings from the then unknown composer David Jackman. 23 years later the electronic din of Claire & Susan resurfaces, although the author is no longer hiding behind the pseudonym. Fortunately the music of Reprint (Anomalous NOM23) is much more than a giddy prank. Aptly described by Sanderson as 'an inverted Pop Art aesthetic', Reprint graft a grimy brutism culled from home made ring modulators and dismembered answering machines onto the sterile arepeggiations and polyrhythmic interplay of Cluster or Chris Carter's early productions. 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."

 

Various - Snatch 1

Side 1

Karl's Empty Body - 1441

N4's - N4's

Storm Bugs - Hodge

 

Side 2

Steven Reynolds

Claire Thomas & Susan Vezey - Under Press of Sail

A Clough - Untitled

Credits:

Format: Cassette, 50 copies

Release Date: 1979

Label: Snatch Tapes

Catalogue Number: None

Sleeve Design: Photocopy onto white paper, design by Philip Sanderson, photo by Sally Francis

 

Notes:

The first ever Snatch Tape kicks off with the DIY pop of Karl's Empty Body, a fairly straightforward number, nicely mangled by being fed through a couple of VCS3 ring modulators. The N4's feature some sweet blister guitar (Neu with a drum machine?). Side one rounds off with the Storm Bugs number 'Hodge' again featuring that great British synth the VCS3. Side 2 has the first outing for those fictitous knob twiddlers Claire Thomas & Susan Vezey. The side ends with a melancholic piece of morse interference by A Clough. The tracks by Karl's Empty Body, The N4s, A Clough, and Claire Thomas & Susan Vezey were all later included on the Vinyl on Demand LP Snatch Paste.

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'.

Various - Perspectives and Distortion

Side A

Claire Thomas and Susan Vezey - Bright Waves

Matt Johnson - What Stanley Saw

Virgin Prunes - "Third Secret"

Lol Coxhill - The Calm...

Lemon Kittens - ...In Wooden Brackets

Eyeless In Gaza - You Frighten

Kevin Coyne - Hello Judas

Mark Perry - Dear, Dear

Side B

Ben Watt - Departure

Two Daughters - Return Call/We Are

Kevin Hampson - People In Space

Thomas Leer - Kings of Sham

Five or Six - Folded

Morgan-Fisher - Foreign Correspondent

Robert Fripp - Remorse of Conscience

A Tent - No Way of Knowing

David Jackman - Untitled

Credits:

Format: LP

Release Date: 1981

Label: Cherry Red Records

Catalogue Number BRED15:

 

Format: CD

Release Date: 2003

Label: Cherry Red Records

Catalogue Number: CDMRED231.

 

Notes:

A Cherry Red compilation from 1981 featuring Claire Thomas & Susan Vezey's Bright Waves (a different version of the track that appears on the Reprint cassette) and 'Untitled' by David Jackman. The LP was Re-issued in 2003 on CD on Cherry Red's archive series. The Claire Thomas and Susan Vezey 'Bright Waves' track was also re-issued on the On One of These Bends LP by Philip Sanderson in 2018. 

 

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

 

Various Artists - ContraPop Festival 2018: The Third And Tidal Report

CD1

1 Laraaji - By The Laws Of Manifestation

2 Flower-Corsano Duo - Cocaa Mouth Paralysis

3 Sacred Paws - ust Kids

4 Massicot - Suri Gruti

5 Teeth Of The Sea- Field Punishment

6 DJ Airplane and Spaceship* - The Drum Slave

7 Molly Nilsson - American Express

 

CD2

1 Otherworld - Forgotten Light VII

2 Dave Kane, Alex Neilson, Chris Sharke, and Alex Ward

3 Yuri Landman - On The 1st Of Feb

4 The Storm Bugs - Take It To The Top

5  Adrian Sherwood - Just Programme It

6 Coldnose - Memories

7 Margenrot - Aghves / Zangezur / Spitak

 

Credits:

Format: CD

Release Date: 2019

Label: Extra Normal

Catalogue Number: TXN 010

Sleeve Design: Oliver Barrett

 

Notes:

ContraPop is a music festival which takes place in a marquee on the baech in Ramsgate, Kent, UK. To accompany the festival a CD is produced showcasing tracks from the previous year's festival, thus this 2019 CD includes the live performance of 'Take It To The Top' by The Storm Bugs from 2018.

 

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 - The Ringing of a Bell

 

 1. The Ringing of a Bell 16:45

Unknown Bell Ringer: Single Bell Toll.

Philip Sanderson: Sound Manipulation.. 

Credits:

Format: Bandcamp Download

Release Date: 2022

Label: Snatch Tapes

Catalogue Number: None

Sleeve Design: Philip Sanderson 

Notes:

And so the Queen is dead, and the bell tolls 96 times – what can be drawn from this dull and dutiful repetition, dong, dong, dong, neither building nor climaxing, an endless anticipation, a ceremony of the senses, an everything of nothing, a shrill shell. 

 

Let us take just one single toll of the bell and see if out of that metal on metal we can conjure something befitting… 

 

I give you The Ringing of a Bell

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

 

Philip Sanderson - Seal Pool Sounds Limited Edition Box

A box set version of the Seal Pool CD limited to 25 copies. As well as the main Seal Pool CD, it includes an additional CD-R with two long drone tracks. All the boxes are hand made in Japan by John Podeszwa and feature various photographs and ephemera sourced by him.

Tracklisting 

CD as per regular Seal Pool Sounds

CD-R:

Fluorescent

Osaka by Night

 

Credits

Format: CD 25 of 500 copies, CD-R/Box, 25 copies

Release Date: 2005

Label: Seal Pool

Catalogue Number: None

Sleeve Design: John Podeszwa

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.