va - Motop 1

Here is one of the all-time classic late-1980's experimental noise compilation LPs, "Motop 1". The concept was ripped straight from the idealistic (idiot?) international cassette-network underground. At the time, record production was still a risky investment. This was before the internet, before distributors cared about noise, before No Fun Fest, before people like Merzbow and Wolf Eyes could pay their electric bills by going on world tours. The idea was that artists could have a track on this LP if they paid for part of its production. If people chipped in, the record could be financed without anyone losing too much money. Frans de Waard compiled the tracks (and contributed a good one as Kapotte Muziek), IF Records released the vinyl in 1989, and there you are: noise by obscure weirdos like Totungsdelikt and Post Mortem had the chance to potentially expand their audience on a format viewed as somewhat more pro than self-made cassette tapes. And what a record it turned out to be!

The incessantly active De Fabriek appear here, because of course they do. Militia Chresti, also known as the HESS Group, contributed a track. Gazza November's Freek Kinkelaar would later change his "band" name to Brunnen and become 1/2 of both Wander and Beequeen. Dva Met Dva Nichts is better known by his initials, DMDN, and more recently as a member of the fantastic (and criminally under-rated) THU20. The not-Dutch contributors include provocative English power-electronics screamer Con-Dom, Belgian industrial (oh sorry, I mean "minimal synth") band Absolute Body Control, Merzbow, Luis Mesa, Phaeton Derniere Danse, Vidna Obmana (today known as Fear Falls Burning), New Carrolton (featuring Jeff Surak aka Violet, of Watergate Tapes and Zeromoon), and American/German genre-phobes Doc Wor Mirran. Then there are artists who sank back into the iron oxide mire, their tracks on "Motop 1" being some of the only surviving evidence of their work: Asod Dvi, O.R.D.U.C., Esruk, and Lampshade.

va - Motop 1