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.

 

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.

Various - Telephone Music

 

Side A

1 Maps (Philip Sanderson)

2 Thief (Philip Sanderson/Michael Denton)

3 Merry Christmas Adolf (Michael Denton)

4 Drinks and Aeroplanes (Philip Sanderson)

 

Side B 

1 Ups and Downs (Philip Sanderson/Michael Denton)

2 Apostrophe S (Philip Sanderson/Steven Ball/David Jackman)

3 Spy Garden (Philip Sanderson)

4 Mr. Sound (Michael Denton)

 

Credits

Format: Cassette, 5 copies.

Release Date: 1986

Label: Telephone Music

Catalogue Number: tel 001

Sleeve Design: Michael Denton & Philip Sanderson. Photo by Michael Denton

Compiled and produced by: Philip Sanderson

 

Notes: 

The tape compiled collaborative and solo tracks by PhilipSanderson & Michael Denton from bertween 1981 and 1986, plus the track 'Apostrophe S' by Philip Sanderson & Steven Ball (with flute by David Jackman). The tape came in two sleeves, a white 7-inch single sleeve (sealed using brown parcel tape) with a grey photocopied label on the front and back and a design with the camouflage plyers. 'Maps', 'Drinks and Aeroplanes', and 'Spy Garden' (retitled as 'Tale Chase') were re-issued in 2018 on the LP On One of These Bends.

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'.

 

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."

 

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.

Rewind

 

 

Philip Sanderson - Hollow Gravity

Side A

Introduction

Prefabrication

Chance Operation

Tooting Broadway

The Secret Of The Fountain

Low Flying Branches

Bodysnatcher

 

Side B

Mr. Electrico's Revenge

Crystal Set

Pickle Pin

Hard Shoulder

Spaghetti Tension

 

Credits:

Format: Vinyl LP, 100 copies

Release Date: 2012

Label: Puer Garvy

Catalogue Number: PG002

Sleeve Design: Philip Sanderson

 

Notes:

Limited to 100 numbered copiesd each with laser etched labels and silk screened sleeves. All tracks by Philip Sanderson.

 

Review:

From: the Wire magazine, September 2012 by Edwin Pouncey

Philip Sanderson, electronic musician, installation artist, co-founder of Storm Bugs and founder of underground British tape label Snatch Tapes, returns with Hollow Gravity, a beautiful slab of vinyl with laser etched labels that flicker gently on the turntable as the disc rotates and the sounds pulse. This latest solo release from Sanderson follows 2005's album Seal Pool Sounds, a melancholic portrait of zoos that was also spiced with a mischievous erratic humour.

 

Hollow Gravity is sombre but still playful, as Sanderson bolts together an imaginary science fiction soundtrack with his collection of analogue synthesizers, delay pedals and any other electronic junk that comes to hand from the pile. The results are zany and mysterious, occasionally flecked with a hint of menace, a sense of danger, a boiling vat of electronic music that occasionally sounds like the work of a mad scientist.

 

From: Aural Innovations blog by Jerry Kranitz

 

Puer Gravy is the vinyl only label run by Eric and Matt of Vas Deferens Organization and Philip Sanderson's Hollow Gravity is the label's second release. Let's start with some historical notes…

 

Philip Sanderson was in the thick of the UK post-punk DIY homemade music/cassette culture scene that enjoyed a brief period of visibility (if not significant sales) in the late 70s and earliest of 80s, with regular coverage of hometaper releases in the nationally distributed New Musical Express and Sounds, airplay by John Peel, and even some distribution through Rough Trade. It was a heady period when people believed that DIY releases could actually break the stranglehold of, or at least subvert to some extent, the major record companies.

 

From 1978-81 Sanderson's Snatch Tapes label released compilations, the first recordings of David Jackman (Organum), and tapes by the Storm Bugs, Sanderson's recording project with Steven Ball, which encompassed noise, soundscapes, cut-ups and collage, songs… all manner of sonic exploration. In fact, Sanderson had a leg up on most of his peers, explaining in a Sound Projector interview (issue #16, 2007-08) how he had access to the electronic music studio at Goldsmiths, University of London, the result being that Storm Bugs releases often consisted of both bedroom studio recordings and those done in the electronic music studio at Goldsmiths. In the same interview Sanderson also describes how during this brief window of time he could take Snatch Tapes releases to the Rough Trade warehouse and they would buy copies without even listening to them, and had a Snatch Tapes display in the Rough Trade shop, all pretty remarkable when you stop and think about it.

 

I could go on as hometaper/cassette culture history is a fascination of mine but I felt a little Sanderson background was important. So… on to the new Philip Sanderson LP, his first album of new material since 2005_s Seal Pool Sounds CD. Hollow Gravity consists of 12 tracks and Sanderson employs an arsenal of gear, including Korg Montron, Yamaha CS-15, Circuit bent Casio PT-280, Long and Short Wave Radio, Guitar, Evans EchoPet EP-100m WBL 4014, NDA Plug-ins, Soundforum Synth, SoundEdit 16, and Sound Studio 3.

 

The album includes an intriguing variety of electronic, spaced out, and creatively tape manipulated concoctions. Among the highlights is Prefabrication, on which Sanderson lays down a strange electro guitar-ish/percussive pattern that reminded me of a track from Goblin's Suspiria soundtrack, and indeed the music has an intense sci-fi/horror flick vibe, and even develops an oddball rhythmic groove. The titles on the back of the LP include little descriptive blurbs, and Chance Operation is described as “For circuit bent piano and cut-up Cage”, featuring a sparse piano melody, eerie soundscapes, narrative voice samples, and other effects. Cut-ups… Chance Operation indeed.

 

Among the more whimsical fun-with-tape tracks is the jazz band tape manipulation of Tooting Broadway, mixing wild sounds and voice samples from some old advertising or educational recording on The Secret Of The Fountain, the captivating combination of angelic ambient waves and bleepy blurpy electronics on Low Flying Branches, the fun strange spaced out bouncy electro melody of Crystal Set, and the Residents Goosebumps toy instrument style of Pickle Pin.

 

We've also got some really cool and off-the-beaten-path space excursions. Bodysnatcher is like early Tangerine Dream remixed to inject a melodramatic orchestral edge. Described as “A ballad for J.G. Ballard”, Hard Shoulder consists of spaced out soundscapes that starts off with a claustrophobic feel, but slowly adds layers until I felt like the sole passenger on a space station. And Spaghetti Tension has similarly spaced out soundscapes, but with more sound experimentation plus a strange and hypnotic sense of melody.

 

In summary, Hollow Gravity serves up a creative and often fun blend of electronics and sounds, all cleverly tape manipulated to create music covering of range of spaced out and experimental realms. Note that the LP has been released in an edition of only 100 copies and is pressed on 180-gram laser etched vinyl (which vinyl junkies will dig for sure).

Storm Bugs - Gift

Side 1

Storm Bugs

Hiemal

Eat Good Beans

Outburst

Dull Sound of Breath

Side 2

Window Shopping 

Make Customers Matter

Car Situations

Blackheath Episode

Animal

 

Credits:

Format: Cassette, 25 copies

Release Date: 1981

Label: Snatch Tapes

Catalogue Number: TCH240

Sleeve Design: Philip Sanderson. Photocopy onto white card. Photograph taken by Sanderson in Paddington.

 

Notes:

Gift is a compilation tape including selections drawn from 1978-80. Tracks are taken from both the Table Matters EP as well as from previous Storm Bugs tapes. Car Situations differs from that on the Metamorphose Single in that it is an accapella version. 'Make Customers Matter' is a remix of the track on the Table Matters EP without the voice-over by Mr WH Smith. 'Hiemal' was re-issued as 'And She Blew' on the CD Lets Go Outside and Get it Over.