à;GRUMH... - By the Phone

First cassette by Belgian electro-industrial-synth weirdoes  à;GRUMH..., self-released on the band's own Titicaca Records in 1982. This is an artifact of the no-one's-listening-so-let's-do-whatever-the-hell-we-feel-like hometaper spirit of the early 1980's. The name of their label should be a red flag for the level of sophistication the duo was capable of. After this oddity (also an LP called "Rebearth" and a couple of more abstract fake-TG affairs recorded under other nonsensically punctuated names), they grew to resemble a sillier, snottier, far less ambitious Front 242... or like A Split Second as party band with somewhat less embarrassing lyrics. This tape, though, is the most inscrutable of the lot. Side A features four songs of meandering goof replete with tuneless/artless trumpet and recorder (!) warble and a drumbox preset you've no doubt heard on a billion better albums than this one. Side B includes three of the same songs recorded (you guessed it) over a telephone line. I can hear you ask... why on Earth would anyone do that? My answer to you is... who the hell knows? It must have seemed like a good idea to them at the time. In any case,  à;GRUMH... didn't take themselves too seriously and neither should you. Maybe the boneheaded ugliness of this thing would appeal to fans of The Door and the Window... maybe... ?

 à;GRUMH... - By the Phone