"Songs for Analytical Self-Crippling", and you can sing along to every last one of them! Released in 1991 as an LP by Schimpfluch, of course, in a paltry edition of just 70 copies in the label's well-known handmade art packaging. Mostly consists of Eb.er talking to himself, with occasional intrusive raspberries.
Institut Für Psycho-Hygiene/Rudolf Eb.er - Lieder Zur Anal.ytischen Selbstverkrüppelung
Vodka Sparrows - No Title / Self Title
Delicate and strung out twin guitar drones courtesy of Anthony Guerra and Mark Leacy.
C32 released on Melbourne-based Albert's Basement in 2013.
No Title / Self Title
va - As Yet Untitled
I love this compilation! Even though they released it before thinking of a title. All killer, no filler: AMK, Architects Office, The Haters, PBK, Tom Dimuzio, Illusion of Safety, Arcane Device, Hands To, Static Effect, Randy Grief, and more. Released in 1991 as a CD by Realization Recordings.
va - As Yet Untitled
va - As Yet Untitled
Merzbow - Lowest Music & Arts 1980 - 1983
A massive pile of utterly necessary remastered tapes that were originally released on Masami Akita's "Lowest Music & Arts" label. You get a special Bleak Bliss prize if you can guess when they were released! There is some crossover with the Merzbox but these are the full tapes. Not that one is better than the other, they are different. I'd assume that most of you have this already ... this is for the ones that didn't.
Ten LPs and a 7" released on the inestimably important Vinyl-on-demand in 2012.
Lowest
Music
Arts
Richard Lainhart - Ten Thousand Shades Of Blue
Beautiful electro-acoustic drone music recorded between 1975 and 1989. It's all great, but the big hit is "Two Mirrors Face One Another", the 40-minute mammoth of audio codeine made from bowed Japanese temple bells on the first disc. Fans of Eliane Radigue, John Grzinich, Murmer., and Jim Haynes take note! Released in 2001 by Experimental Media Foundation.
disc 1
disc 2
disc 1
disc 2
G*Park - 15
Recorded live in Berlin in 2009, released in 2010 as a 100-copy CDR by Rumpsti Pumpsti Edition (aka Tochnit Aleph's record shop and gallery) in 2010.
G*Park - 15
G*Park - 15
Merzbow - Collection 009
Remastered reissue of the 1981 tape released as an LP on Urashima in 2013.
Whilst we are here: over the past few months, スローダウンRECORDS have released a whole raft of Merzbow covering new material and a host of 1979-83 ish reissues (most of which we hadn't heard before). We have all of them and they are all great. Even though they are still available from the label and there are effective distribution networks (Soleilmoon, for instance), there are some Japanese speculators listing these for sale at many multiples of the release price. You have been both informed and warned. Get them at the real price whilst you can.
Collection 009
Merzbow - Collection 007
Self-released C44 from 1981 that is different to the one presented on the Lowest Music & Arts box-set.
Collection 007
Merzbow - Antimonument
Originally a picture disc LP released on ZSF Produkt in 1986. Five years later, it was remastered and re-released with a bonus track. This is another that's now considered to be unofficial as the label kind of forgot to pay anybody. The packaging for these is really quite good ... maybe that's where all of the money went. However, there were only supposed to be 225 released but I suspect there were a lot more. I can't remember which box mine is stashed in (and I'm too lazy to go and find it) so can't confirm my edition number. 000872 is shown on discogs. Given I'm firmly in "allegedly" territory, let's move on ...
CD released on Art Directe in 1991.
Antimonument
SCUM - Steel Cum EP
In spite of a small number of these getting a Japanese release, it's officially an unofficial release given that Vertical Records remixed material from the original Steel Cum tape without permission. It's still good tho'.
7" released on Vertical Records and ZSF Produkt in 1992.
Steel Cum
Allan Bryant - Spaceball (Powrfl Nu Electric Gtarz N Nu Sounz)
Early 1990s self-released CD of guitar noise by genuine oddball Allan Bryant, who was a member of the great oddball ensemble Musica Electronica Viva along with heavy weirdos Richard Teitelbaum, George Lewis, Alvin Curran, Fred Rzewski, and more. Bryant's most glaring peculiarity is his singular method of spelling. See, he believes that rules of spelling are too rigid and take too much time to earn, so he spells everything in a few characters as possible... he thinks this makes communication more direct. Note that on the over of this, his first solo album, he helpfully lets you know (via parenthesis) that "Aln" is how he will spell his name from now on. He dsnt bthr abrevtng t wrd "electric" fr sum rzn. Hu noz y? Nt me.
Allan Bryant - Spaceball (Powrfl Nu Electric Gtarz N Nu Sounz)
Recycled Body Programm / Vidna Obmana / S.C.U.M. - Statue Series
Classy set of tapes that has Bart Hanselaar's Recycled Body Programm, Dirk Serries' Vidna Obmana (just in case you don't know, Dirk morphed into the excellent Fear Falls Burning) and S.C.U.M. (Masami Akita and Kiyoshi Mizutani).
The third tape is the great "The Scan Has Undergone Several Minor Revisions" that was released in Japan on Masami's ZSF Produkt label in the same year. I doubt that many in "the west" would have got to heard this otherwise. The fourth tape is a compilation (that has most of the Steel CUM tape) with some great collaborations and reworkings from the European chaps.
Four C60 set released on Seiten Sprung Aufnahmen in 1989.
Statue
Series
Merzbow - Merzbuddha Variations
This pushes the beats to the back of the room and lets the crawling escalation take the main stage. I reckon my name still isn't on the list. Bastards!
C32 released on Duenn in 2012.
Merzbuddha Variations
Merzbow - Merzbuddha
The kind of menacing beat driven techno-noise that plays in my favourite imaginary discotheque. Knowing my luck, they wouldn't let me in.
CD released on Important Records in 2005.
Merzbuddha
Merzbow - 1633
Simply gorgeous example of Masami Akita's early 2K work.
LP released on En/Of in 2004 in a tiny edition of 100 copies.
Nothing else to say really.
1633
Wolf Eyes & Merzbow - Live Frying
A collaboration made in heaven! The first track is from a gig at Kings in Raleigh, North Carolina in 2013. The second track is certainly studio and might be Mr Olson playing with source material.
CDr released on American Tapes in 2014.
Live Frying
nEGAPADRÉS.3.3. - Untitled
Yet another strangely unpronounceable alter ego of a;GRUMH..., this one turned out to be the longest lasting. Similar to Theee Rebearth Corporation, nEGAPADRÉS.3.3. was the Belgian duo's outlet for abstract noise, but with less silliness. The LP came out on Circle Records in 1987, but they've revived it for albums as recent as 2011, making it outlast even their "main" band.
nEGAPADRÉS.3.3 - Untitled
nEGAPADRÉS.3.3 - Untitled
Theee Rebearth Corporation - Verses
A one-time-only noise/ambient alter ego of Belgian industrial band à;GRUMH..., this LP came out in 1988 on their own Circle Records label.
Theee Rebearth Corporation - Verses
Theee Rebearth Corporation - Verses
à;GRUMH... - Rebearth
Phillippe Genion & Jacques Muerrens were a Belgian industrial band whose work was usually pretty goofy. They were fairly active in the early 1980s cassette-culture scene, with lots of short-lived pseudonyms on compilation tapes before they settled on the unpronounceable à;GRUMH.... for their main project. I enjoy à;GRUMH...'s albums of synth-pop tunes, but they're all marked by a refusal to take themselves too seriously. This record from 1986, though, is different. Noisy and dark with groaning and chanting, it sounds almost as if they tried to make a Psychic TV album. Maybe it's also all a joke? But maybe not. Hard to tell.
à;GRUMH... - Rebearth
à;GRUMH... - Rebearth
Wolf Eyes - Clock Warden Vol. 3
Jazz sax space electronics with slurred Vega vocals ...
Another great self-released CDr for sale on tour in 2016.
Clock Warden Vol. 3
Polar Praxis - Fireworks
The second Polar Praxis LP came out a year after the first one, with a confusingly similar title.
Polar Praxis - Fireworks
Polar Praxis - Fireworks
Polar Praxis - Music For Fireworks
Following several cassettes in 1983 and 1984 (yet unheard by me) and compilation tracks, Phillippe Genion's 1986 LP as Polar Praxis came out on Scarface Records in Belgium. Sounds like he'd been listening to a lot of "Phaedra".
Polar Praxis - Music For Fireworks
Polar Praxis - Music For Fireworks
Wolf Eyes - Strange Days
CDr that was for sale in the the Audio Social Dissent tour in 2016 and subsequently backed up by Strange Days II.
Strange Days
Wolf Eyes - Live At Horseshoe Tavern, Toronto
Excellent live recording that manages to remind me of early Psychic TV sex magick disco.
Promo CDr put out by Sub Pop to warn the little hipsters what they were in for if they bought the Human Animal LP.
Live At Horseshoe Tavern, Toronto
Steel CUM - Steel CUM
Otherwise known as S.C.U.M. or the Society for Cutting Up Merzbow (and many other variations). Kiyoshi Mizutani and Masami Akita slicing and dicing their own materiel for your personal delectation.
C60 released on their own ZSF Produkt in 1990.
Steel CUM
Merzbow - 9888a
Funny you should mention these Merzbow people Mrs. Inside ... this was recorded in 1988, so maybe (just maybe) they are related in some way? Someone on discogs is trying to sell this for one hundred and five English pounds. Guess it must be popular ... no idea why, it just sounds like a load of old noise to me!
C44 released on 905 Tapes in 2010.
9888a