Rumble of The Ruins : steven ball

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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

<a href="https://snatchtapes.bandcamp.com/album/supplementary-benefit-compilation">Supplementary Benefit (Compilation) by Storm Bugs</a>

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.

Steven Ball - Middle Footscray

1.Take One 03:48

2. Down the Dip 02:07

3. Morning Folds 04:09

4. Bloody Hell Good Boy 02:10

5. Shelf Stacker 00:49

6. Man Overboard 02:53

7. Coffee Bean Ant 02:24

8. Wooden Piano 01:12

9. Seddon Junction 00:30

10. Deep Problem 00:27

11. Failure of Nerve 03:09

12. Umbel 13:47

13. Up the Sides 02:51

Credits:

Format: Bandcamp download

Release Date: 2016

Label: Snatch Tapes

Catalogue Number: None

Sleeve Design: Steven Ball

Notes:

All tracks by Steven Ball recorded in Footscray, Melbourne, Australia, 1997 - 1999. Tracks 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, & 8 recorded 1997 tracks 2, 9, 10, & 11 recorded 1998 track 13 recorded 1999. All tracks constructed using various shareware, sampled found sound, ambient room and field recordings. Tracks 1, 4, & 6 constructed entirely from found audio rushes from an unidentified Australian film. Track 12 is the soundtrack to the super 8 film ‘Umbel' by Ooni Peh. Lomograph by Steven Ball 1997.

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.

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'.

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

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