Cathedra

Just spent a pleasant while listening to an old cassette by Cathedra. It was whilst playing the Astral Social Club "Smashed Tractor" CDr that got me thinking...the sleeve reminds of an old tape I've got. The tape is "Until The End Of The World" by Cathedra. The cassette was released in 1996 by Newcastle based label MuzaMuza and limited to 100 copies. (I have #2).
Whilst playing the tape I was thinking how I came about owning a copy - I reckon it was a gift from my old "housemate" Mick McDaid from when we shared a house in Lincoln back in the late 1990's. This was all (of course) pre-internet, and up until now (studious research) I had no idea who Cathedra were or was. There is a clue on the sleeve, a contact address based in Wymondham (pronounced "Win-Dam"), Norfolk. To my knowledge there are only 4 folk producing "experimental synthesizer based" music in Wymondham, Norfolk. Two are Chris Carter & Cosey Fanni Tutti, and Cathedra ain't them, one is Glenn Wallis and although the sound has Konstruktivists moments I am certain Mick would have said it was a Glenn "side-project", infact Mick would not have handed over a Glenn Wallis cassette so easily! The other person is Mark Crumby. Is Cathedra Mark Crumby? Turns out (studious research) the answer is yes.
Well, there y'go. I remember Mark Crumby from the days he produced "Impulse" magazine, a fine magazine from the mid 1990's that came with a tape. I still have a couple. The magazine was rather usurped by "Music From The Empty Quarter" at the time, but it was still an essential read. "Impulse" stopped and Mark set up Jara Discs. I have a copy of the Muslimgauze single "Nile Quartra" that he put out but the label (at the time) passed me by.

Fast forward a couple of years to 1999 and I am (as mentioned) sharing a house with Outsider Records supremo Mick McDaid and he gets a letter from Mark asking if he wants to buy some records he is selling. (Pre-internet days. Letters. Crazy)! On the list is the Mass LP "Labour Of Love" on 4AD and "ACC" 7" by Robert Rental on Regular Records. Mint condition. I buy both. I cannot understand why anyone would want to sell these two slices of classic vinyl, but to Mark I am eternally grateful. I wonder if he regrets the sale? The vinyl has gone to a good home.
I would have thought that Mute Records would have put out some Robert Rental retrospective collection on CD by now. He and Daniel Miller were great friends. There is the "ACC" single & the Mute Records released "Double Heart" 7" as well as collaborative works with Thomas Leer and Daniel Miller. Rehearsal tapes must exist for the Miller/Rental tour, they simply must. Then there's the Robert Rental tape "Solo" that doesn't seem to get a mention on any discography, but I have a copy, not original but a TDK C60 mailed to me by Dan Plunkett of ND Magazine fame. Others must have it? Where is that Robert Rental CD?
Anyway. Back to Cathedra. Now I know it is the work of Mark Crumby I can hear the Konstruktivists "influence". That is not a bad thing. I like Konstruktivists, "Psykho Genetika" is a classic album. There is a tinge of Bushido in the Cathedra tracks. (Third Mind Records link). I have played a gig with Glenn Wallis and found him a truly fascinating man. Funny guy, real funny guy. But, Cathedra is Mark Crumby and I may write about my 2 days in a small Belgian town in 1998 with Glenn later.....
The cassette is instrumental. Side A has an Eastern feel, Polynesian / Japanese rhythms, sounding like an accompaniment to S.P.K's "Songs Of Byzantine Flowers" album. A hint of 23 Skidoo and (as mentioned) Bushido and Konstruktivists. This was 1996, and good stuff. Side B starts with the track "Netherworld". Jaunty synth keyboard notes and a cascading rhythm, it made me think of soundtracks to Building Society adverts or ....... no, Building Society adverts. I thought to myself, I bet these guys have gone into advertising. (I did not know it was Mark Crumby. OK)! A track of grand piano leads into the cassettes magnum opus: "Momento Mori". I think this was recorded live as the levels are a little haywire to say the least. Tibetan style percussion over Gregorian chants with pieces of German Radio. (Deutsche Radio). I love voices on German Radio. There are keyboard surges and on a couple of occasions what sounds like a seal playing a car horn and the track is far too long but that doesn't stop it from being a really good listen. I did get lost in it all, but then came out as it went on beyond its necessary time.

Over all a great cassette and I am really glad I dug it out and gave it a listen. I'm tempted to buy the Cathedra 7" "Valediction" on Jara Discs. Now where is my copy of NKVD/Heute "Prior To Intercourse"? I'm going to give that a play tomorrow.

Pictures:
1: Cathedra Sleeve.
2: Cathedra Inner Sleeve.
3: Cathedra Back Cover.

Astral Social Club #3

Just spent a pleasant while listening to the latest (to me) release from Astral Social Club. A 3"CDR on the Southampton (UK) label "Journal Of The Belgae Folk Club". The CDR lasts 15 minutes and is packaged in a deluxe fold-out card sleeve with inserts galore. A lovely piece of work.
The track itself is called "Smashed Tractor" and I think is an excerpt from a live performance. There is no information here, that part is bloody annoying! The track comes straight in - no fade, no quiet build. It is straight in your face so (for me) it takes a couple of minutes to get into the groove. Lots of sounds float around. Oscillations dance between the ears, lots of synth noodling and a wall of sound from old Sinclair or Realistic computer games. Ten or so minutes later the sound calms down and cuts out peacefully.
It would be nice to hear the whole live recording, but as document to the live sound of Astral Social Club / Neil Campbell this is a necessary release and as I said - beautifully packaged. Limited to 50 copies, and I would be very surprised if not sold out by now.

Pictures:
1-3: Astral Social Club "Smashed Tractor" sleeve.

Dr. Zarkhov's Waiting Room

I have been in some really crapply named bands in the past 32 years, it all started off in 1979 with So Commercial and really it hasn't got much better (name wise that is). So Commercial was a name (we thought) like The Pop Group. They weren't "pop" and we certainly were not commercial. I think for the style of music they made The Pop Group is one of the best named groups ever. So Commercial lasted about a year before we decided we didn't like it. Along came a plethora of band names that lasted as long as one side on a C60 cassette: The Attempted Rape Of David Kirton, Anagram Of Clit, The Arrival Of A Train At La Ciotat Station. (With this one we chose the method of picking at random a name of a film from a book, Dennis Gifford book of Horror Movies was chosen. It didn't quite work out). Then we became E.S.P. Diskord, taking the name from the original title of The Fall song "Psychick Dancehall". I have always liked this name.
In 1981, after the collapse of E.S.P. Diskord comes a whole list of crappy names. Names that when in loose conversation I say that I am in "a band" and I am asked what they're called I often refuse to say or mumble something with an embarrassed smile.
Active E.G., Wallpaper Paris, Herman & The Helmets, Ideas Beyond Filth, Art Versus Filth all terrible terrible names and in the top 3 of crapply named bands I have been in comes Dr. Zarkhov's Waiting Room. Spring 1984, Hulme. Manchester. Charles Barry Crescent to be precise. At the time, home to Edward Barton, Karl Burns and the guitarist with a foreign name from The Passage ... and Doctor Zarkhov's Waiting Room.
It all began with myself on drums and flatmate Gary (Warmington) on guitar "jamming" old Velvet Underground songs. Enjoyment. Then Gary started to write songs and we borrowed an old Fostex 4-Track and recorded them. The cassette needed a name, so Gary came up with Doctor Zarkhov's Waiting Room. I remember (at the time) thinking "crap name", but Gary assured me that Dr. Zarkhov was Adolf Hitlers mother's gynaecologist and not a lot of people knew that! I certainly didn't and believed Gary 100%. We are back in 1984, before facts could be checked on the internet. A couple of months later and Andy Wright moves into the flat. Andy is a very accomplished drummer. All three of us were very unemployed at the time so I shifted to bass guitar and the Doctor began practising again. Why we stuck with the name? I have no idea. The sound was a mix of Velvet Underground, The Stooges (we did "I'm Waiting For My Man" and "Anne"), The Seeds mixed in with a bit of Dream Syndicate and Green On Red. It certainly was Gary's baby, and we'd rehearse every day of the week. The Crescents flats were great for rehearsing - no-one gave a shit.
By December 1984, we had recorded an album, called "Hoping For The Holocaust". I have a copy on tape. Not an actual release copy with sleeve etc (colour in yourself, if I remember correctly) but all on one side of a C90. It is awful. Hilarious in parts. Out of tune, out of time. Mass drug use is obvious but we were oblivious. We even did a gig in the flat on Christmas Eve 1984, and nobody came. Two folk did, they were on a Christmas drug hunt and we made them sit and listen to our 40 minute set before letting them go! (Sorry Brendan & Dominic if you are reading this). Our recording finale came in January 1985 with a track called "In Dub". Drums, bass and organ. It is an epic piece sounding like The Wake if they were on ON-U Sound and not Factory Records. Shortly afterwards I quit the Crescents for health and safety reasons!

Doctor Zarkhov's Waiting Room made a one-off public appearance in Lincoln. May 1985. Gary & Andy (with Irish Mickey on Bass) played as Furious Fish at The Cornhill Vaults in Lincoln and I joined in for one song, an old Dr. Zarkhov's Waiting Room song "This Pleasant Land".
Christmas Day 1985 and the three of us play an impromptu gig at the Hulme Labour Club that was being squatted at the time. This was our last performance. Six months later and I had moved back to the Crescents and the three of us began Rise - the story of which may be told later.

So. Doctor Zarkhov's Waiting Room. What a crap name! Still not as bad as: "Bob, We're Talking Penis".

Pictures:
1: Andy Wright and Myself outside our flat, Charles Barry Crescent. 1984
2: "Experiments In Doctor Zarkhov's Waiting Room" Cassette EP Sleeve. (1984)
3: Myself and Gary Warmington live in The Cornhill Vaults, Lincoln. May 1985.

Clock DVA

Just a quick one:
Just spent an hour or so trawling the internet and found a couple of discussions on Clock DVA and the works of Adi Newton. Interesting stuff indeed. A lot of miss-information and available "Demo" downloads made me dig out a treasured tape. "Agony".
I first saw this tape in 1989 in the collection of my first wife, and was kindly given it in a separation "deal" in 1995. Strange how these things come about - I also got the "Girls Don't Count" 7"EP by Section 25 - but I'm not going to dwell on the spoils of a failed marriage.
Susan (the 1st Mrs. Cammack) got the tape from Stephen Singleton back in 1980 and now I own it. I hadn't played it for years, it has stood the test of time well though.
It all begins with "No.2", an extract from a Samuel Beckett play from 1975 called "Ghost Trio".
"Mine is a feint voice".
Then the tracks go from high energy "punk" songs like "Cage" and "You're Without Sound" ( a superior version to the one that ended up on the "Hicks From The Sticks" LP) through to dark experimental ideas like "Le Viol" to free form improv. All with a heavy dose of essential tape hiss.
I was once asked the question, if your house was on fire what treasured item would you rescue - this tape is high on the list.
I am uncertain to the DVA line up on "Agony", I do know they were quite varied during 1978-1979. On here is piano, violin, clarinet, synth, drums, bass and electric guitar in the mix. There is a rumour going about that the German label Vinyl-On-Demand are releasing a box set of Clock DVA demos this year, it will be nice to hear a crystal clear "Agony".

Pictures:
1: "Agony" tape sleeve.
2: a 1979 DVA picture from the internet.

Duncan Harrison / BBBlood

Another split release, this time by two stalwarts of the "electronic underground" scene in the UK - Duncan Harrison and Paul Watson AKA BBBlood.
This cassette only came to me a few days ago after spending a few months of
last year trying to get hold of a copy, I think I may have grabbed the last copy available. It sold out pretty damn fast and listening to it I can hear why. This enters the Top Ten list for 2010 releases.
Information is, again, pretty minimal. No track titles, no project title - not even a hint of a label name. What is it with folk who release tapes but don't like information?
Duncan Harrison gives us around 20 minutes of the sound of surfing the lightwaves and frequencies of radios. Sounding live and like it was recorded in an empty warehouse. There is a powerful heavy guitar sound building at the end. Very visual piece. BBBlood provides two "untitled" pieces. The first is a sound of interference. Static almost. Other noises creep around. The second piece is more organic, effected sounds through contact microphones. There is a small funereal keyboard sound drifting at the end. (BBBlood, putting the fun in funereal).
It is one of those tapes where you just keep flipping and playing, and enjoying.
Wondering whether or not this was a pre-planned "concept album" (Konzeptalbum) and just how the release came about I asked Paul Watson AKA BBBlood a few questions via E:Mail:

MM: Was there an overall theme / concept behind the split (or) where you aware of each others recordings at the time and thought "that'd make a good split"?
PW: Yeah, I did have some conversations with Duncan about the split before we recorded our tracks. I wanted to keep the sound restrained and on a very slow pace for my side. Before recording I had been focusing on sourcing some very different sounds that are looped in the first part of the track. The second is yet more loops that I've digitally processed and a contact mic' doing very little besides the odd crunch here and there. I really can't remember as I recorded my side probably this time last year.
I know Duncan changed his mind on what he recorded for his side a couple of times and he was really pleased with my side. I never actually heard his material for the split until I received my artist copies.
MM: Why is there no title to either the tape or tracks or label!?
PW: No titles from my side and it is self-released by Duncan. Hence very minimal information about either of us. Duncan has told me he is going to repress the tape soon as he sold out within a week,

A small insight of a worthy release. Keep peeled to the BBBlood blogspot for news of the second pressing release. bbblood.blogspot.com

Pictures:
1: BBBlood Live.
2: Duncan Harrison Live.
3: Sleeve to the "cassette with no name".

Carlos Giffoni + Cornucopia

Just managed to get a copy of the split cassette by Carlos Giffoni and Cornucopia. Limited to 50 copies and released by the Puerto Rican label Sonora. This is the first Puerto Rican released item in my collection. There are no titles, in fact the cassette is titled "Untitled" in the Sonora discography. (www.sonoradisc.com).
The tape is a C10. 5-A-Side. Cassingle. Lovely stuff.
Giffoni presents a slow-droned loop with electronics weaving in and out creating a wall of beautiful nodding noise. It is a lovely 5 minute piece. I have a split LP by Giffoni/Dilloway and a 7" on UK label Harbinger Sound, and now this - and not a bum note on any, I shall have to investigate more in 2011. I wish I could say the same about Cornucopia but their untitled 5 minutes is noise-by-numbers and hits no buttons with me. A piece created from a live performance by Giffoni in San Juan back in 2005, this could be Napalmed, Government Alpha, Bizarre Uproar. Indistinguishable, but on the good side - a C10 doesn't take long to rewind.
A treasured Giffoni track is worth the six dollars and if there are any left I say - buy now!

Aaron Dilloway #4

Ahh, the January sales. I think it was last year that I picked up some bargainous Aaron Dilloway releases (vinyl & CD) from Norman Records of Leeds, this year I have bought some great stuff in the sales from Blackest Rainbow of Scotland and alt.vinyl of Newcastle. Both promptly delivered and friendly - both UK distro outfits are recommended.
Both Dilloway releases are live recordings. Firstly comes the 7"EP "Live At The Chislehurst Caves from 2007, released by Hanson Records. This is a collaboration with John Weise. I do not know whether or not these are recordings taken from a visit to the caves and then used in a live recording or a recording from a gig that actually happened inside the caves? Following in the footsteps of Mr. Bowie, The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin. The caves were a venue back in the 1960's, but as far as I was aware hadn't been used for gigs since. (For those who do not know, the caves are in London and used to be used for sheltering from the doodlebugs during World War 2). Anyway. Excellent single. Side 1 - hard looping, really hard looping stuff, I am taken (a)back to the late 1970's industrial sound of TG + Boyd Rice, in fact the single plays like a long lost gem from that era. I get excited. Hanson Records recently re-release a cassette by Z.O.Voider, originally recorded and released in 1987 - that too is like discovering some long lost industrial gem. The Hunting Lodge triple LP set on Vinyl-On-Demand again is a pure joy for all of us who actually enjoy "industrial" music. This 7" fits in. Side 2 is mellower in sound but still hits the button.
Demons & Dilloway is a cassette on the US label AA Records, again from 2007 and recorded live at the Magic Stick. I do not know if Magic Stick is a venue or name of a recording studio? From the off we are into some real heavy rhythm loop (I would imagine from Mr. Dilloway) then other members / players take the part in this beautiful soundscape of noise. Obviously improvised loops and hook lines weave in and out for 30/35 minutes, there's bass guitar, scraped metal, guitar, synth and FX sounds all mixed in. On headphones this is a joy.
One thing that makes me think that this isn't a recording from an actual gig is when the real heavy loop sounds come in and the sound is one of ecstatic bliss, there is no whooping and a hollering from the "audience", and America is the land of the birth of a whooping and a hollering and if there was an audience they certainly would be a whooping and a hollering - unless (of course) they're all stoned - or stoked as I believe it is called in America....
Anyway. 2 excellent releases that everyone should own (or hear). God bless the January sales!

Pictures:
1: Live At Chislehurst Caves cover.
2: Live At Chislehurst Caves back cover.
3: Chislehurst Caves.
4: Demons Dilloway Cassette Sleeve.